Why? What Happened To The Game?

We have issues that haven't even been looked into since NHL 10 lol, your 29 prediction is insanely optimistic.
From my time in the hero program I can safely say that Franchise is low on their list of priorities - I remember being asked to give a top 10 list of stuff the community wanted and had to keep repeating they start throwing a bone to offline modes despite me being all about online.

The HUT whales and youtubers (and by extension, those wasting their hard earned cash donating to them), will make sure that they don't have to put any effort into major QoL overhauls we desperately need. We have a few white knights here who will just say EA is a business and that's all about making money, but you can still make good money without alienating your hardcore fans and being so over the top (and blatantly) greedy about it.