About the robot players, I have a feeling that players already have hidden characteristics that are not shown. There are definately players who perform well beyond what their attributes suggest and sometimes well under.
I know of a player who has terrible stats and still plays fantastic all the time. I am not sure if the existing characteristics include team modifiers. I have heard that some of the BBs are against hidden modifiers so I am not sure about this.
Your second suggestion, I cant really comment on. It seems like a good idea but the implementation might be tricky now that the engine has been developed so much without it.
I have brought up this before and I think the BBs are pretty sure they have the economy worked out. I have been told before that speculation about the future apparently cannot be applied, as the BBs will be tweaking the economy constantly.