Like I said, they either changed the way scouting is done, or we're all crazy.
Or maybe bots contribute money to scouting? I HIGHLY doubt this though.
I played all of season 2 and all of season 3. I suppose that some of the scouting for season 2 happened at the end of season 1, so I didn't scout every week, but that's maybe two weeks max. I don't remember how much I scouted in season 2, but I know that I never went above the 10k/week level. In season 3, I scouted at 10k/week for every week except for last week, where I didn't pay any money at all. So, if I scouted less during season 3, I scouted at most 2 fewer players.
From season 2, I had star rankings for 36/48 players and grades for 10 out of those 36. The grades came with the best stat name and best stat ranking (which was actually the level of the best stat).
This season, I have star rankings for 18/48 players, grades for 3 out of these 18, and the best position for 1 out of these 3.
I assume they've changed the way scouting is done. For what it's worth, I was surprised at the end of season 2 that I had info on so many players.