Of course, what I say is simply my take on where things stand with Pcars at the moment.
There are numerous reasons for the wildly different reports we read and hear online. I suspect many of the negative ones stem from a lack of understanding on how to properly setup and test the game. It just isn't at a point where Pcars is plug & play, you have to understand the vitally important parts and procedures or the handling and/or FFB can appear completely broken to mildly off. It's fairly easy to determine how sincere the source of such a report is about testing with a few technical questions; in most cases - you get the wrong answers or none at all. Of course, there are some that just don't like it for whatever reason.
The development is also at very different stages for different cars, many are getting better fast but, there are still a few that are almost un-drivable in their current state and will be until each variable is further tuned. Once a car is handling pretty well within the community, the pros do their testing and changes are made based on their feedback. There are cases where the community may question certain car behavior and that is then passed onto the pros for their feedback. It may take several passes to get things dialed in. Many, if not most cars are still undergoing testing and tire revisions as well as FFB development. There may be only a few cars that are currently close to being considered done with that phase but, one gets the sense that the pace is now accelerating progressively.
There are also some signs that a setup bug may still be lingering but, it can be hard to reproduce at times. It makes handling comparisons somewhat difficult - even for experienced testers.
All of these things should serve to provide those of us with an open mind, some hope for the outcome of Pcars as a Racing-Sim. I have to admit though, at times - it has the feeling of being on a remote island. I guess that doesn't have to be a bad thing either - can someone please pass me the coconut?