Restrictions

The daily reward is now a reward of 1, where it use to be 3 and 4.

What do you mean? Are you confusing the daily login pack and the daily objective reward with each other?

They have adopted a salary restriction on your team now. Which no longer allows you to build the team you want.

There are opinions for and against the salary cap. On one hand it brings an aspect to team building that we didn't have in the past, but on the other hand the game mode is called Hockey Ultimate Team, and we can't really build an ultimate team with the salary cap. We can increase the cap with line combinations, but even then we might need to use players that we wouldn't otherwise use in our team. I wouldn't mind if the salary cap didn't exist, but I also understand why some people like it.

rewards are the same each season, with the exception of the card you receive at level 60

And also with the exception of the 5 upgradeable XP cards that you receive at lower levels.

the card you receive at level 60. And that card last year, was attainable at level 50

I think the numbers of the levels are irrelevant when comparing this year to last year. The relevant thing is that this year the XP seasons (at least the first two of them) have been longer in terms of time than last year. I'm surprised that EA went to this direction when they made the XP seasons shorter in the middle of last year after we complained that they are too long. However, I haven't seen many complaints about it this year even though the XP seasons have been even longer this year than they were last year before EA made them shorter.