They are hardly 'game development' changes though, most of them are just tweaks here and there. There's been very little game development, or changes to improve the game experience, that I've noticed since I came back 18 months ago.
- The new tactics had just been implemented when I started again, making them ~18 months old. Like you said, they're not very popular, and there seems to be a fair bit of debate around whether they even work as they're intended to.
- Economic changes are not really 'game development', nor do they take much to implement. 5th and 8th not paying salaries is a pretty easy change, I doubt it took much effort at all to implement. Same with the salary floor.
- Free agents are total balls. Excellent way of killing the transfer market and I have no idea how the BBs didn't anticipate that happening. Flooding the market with a bunch of available players is only going to kill prices, which affects the profitability of training, plus a large range of other areas. this is without even considering the effect that money leaving the game (i.e. because it doesn't go to another team when a free agent is purchased) has on the overall economy. Totally ridiculous addition to the game.
- Salaries will need to be adjusted as the game progresses, but this is really 'maintenance' rather than 'development'.
- The current scouting system was in place when I joined again, which makes it more than 18 months old.
- Cross training was added a few months back, but if that's the best change they can come up with, then I'm not really sure what they actually do over there? Sure, it's nice... but the addition of random skills being trained each week is hardly what you would call a revolutionary change to the game. Some would ask why they would bother implementing this at all? What does it really add to the game?
- Career stats are nice, but they aren't particularly difficult. These have been around in most other sports management games for ages.
There are a number of major flaws in the game that need to be addressed sooner, rather than later, so it really makes me wonder what they are actually doing? The fan survey (let's face it, it's pretty much broken), tanking and the ability to buy up players for the playoffs (just to name a few) are all major issues with the game, but nothing seems to be done to address them...
Even the fact that you can't play your best team in three competitive matches each week (i.e. league and cup) without suffering a gameshape penalty is ridiculous and totally illogical. That's probably another debate for another time though.