Because at the end of the day, money is the goal. Cater too much to the gearhead, they lose whatever clout they could have had over the vastly more numerous casual player demographic.

Nonetheless, FH to me still keeps the balance. The reason why the game might appear less and less synced to the tune of a gearhead is because aspects of the game that would appeal to a gearhead are less prominent. Still there, but not in the spotlight.

A good example I like to draw is why FH does engine swapping instead of trim levels. At the end of the day, the option to change the heart of the car is still available later for whoever so desires, but the reason why it’s not done in a way similar to real life is because it’s counterintuitive to hold back players who won’t know better when facing (from their perspective) “rocket science questions” about things like I4, V12 or W16. A casual player is just in this to drive, race and/or skid. And because of that, the option to dive deeper into the rabbit hole of the inner workings of the car has to remain secondary.