Very good article! The only thing that i see that is hindering Gran Turismo/Forza etc is the amount of TC, ABS, stabilizers being still on while in "true sim" modes.. That is deliberate effect of making the player feel he is much better than he really is just to boost the experience. I feel that the player is actually ripped off, lied to. One factor is the controller, you can't really drive with pads without some kind of assists and that is the main difference in my mind: for which controller the Sim is originally designed for..
I divide the sims in three categories: arcade sim (not mario kart, more like NFS), half arcade (GT5/Forza) and true sim (Race07, rFactor, iRacing etc). All of them are simulators with varying degrees of reality. Those categories each have been designed with the controller in mind, arcade sims use pad only, half arcade is wheel/pad and true sim is wheel. I know, everyone of those can be driven with both controller types, even mouse can be used. The difference is hidden deep inside the very core of the game engine.
Lap times is not any kind of meter, you can make a game that delivers excactly the same lap times as in real life with 50% of the driving been done by the CPU... In true sim department, achieving RL lap times can be incredibly difficult if not impossible. The fact is, console gamers have shorter attention span, which is not at all true but game designers think it so, therefore they don't have the stamina to practice 5 hours a day for a year before getting even close to competitive level of performance, they need to do it by the 3rd attempt.
So, the game cheats and gives the player that great feeling very fast, making the game experience totally different. With "true sim" races, the overall arch of game is different. First you practice, practice, practice with not a lot action going on. Then comes the race where everything is chaotic, fast and dangerous. But that is only the beginning, the race will calm down with many having to drive alone for 75% of the race teetering in the brink of boredom and finally finishing with no parade, no great euphoria, it just ends.
Console games use the rubberband effect (increased grip/power the farther you are from the main pack) to combat this so that one mistake won't ruin you're whole race. True sims don't do so and that is why the truesimmers mock everybody who thinks that they are great in console racing: console racers have more fun and truesimmers like me will always be jealous of that. But then there's to other side: when you accomplish something, a win in a tough crowd it feels much better, it feels more real and you know that it was all you and none CPU that made that happen. With half arcades you can't never be sure, you win more often and the reward is lesser.
EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot to mention, i've driven now 3 years, half of that with wheel. My practice hours are in thousands, online races in hudreds and i have not got ANY wins in leagues or Club racing! Podiums can be counted with one hands fingers, that all. Public racing doesn't count as it is lottery... So that's 3 years of no-wins, try to make a console racer do that....
