At the same time, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Sure, the AI especially in later GT career modes were poor at best, but that's us, who play sim games on the regular and expect more of a fighting opposition. Johnny Consumer who is buying this and plays little sim racing games, but still likes the GT games, probably isn't going to complain as much about it.
But here's the thing: PD probably could have taken the old career mode present within past GT games, reworked it for modern audiences, and solved most of the difficulty problems by making a difficulty slider, or making the AI act more like humans instead of making it slot car racing. Instead, they expect the casual fan to graduate to the gong show that is public lobbies in sim racing after they are done the 'license tests on steroids', as someone called it.