I didn't read any the comments so I'm maybe just echoing a lot of the sentiments already raised, but I feel the issues that the game has are bigger than PD itself, and more of an industry wide problem.
PD historically is a company that takes their time. They go at their own pace, expected quarterly profits be damned... until one day Sony clearly had enough and told them GT5 needed to come out in time for the holidays. That resulted in what I feel was a game with ambitious scope that had a level of 'eh, screw it' applied as late as possible, which is why we got a gimped career mode with tons of level grinding to pad out the runtime, mismanaged side events like WRC, and of course standard cars. GT6 was almost certainly done because Sony wanted something to show for all the development time/money for GT5, and basically forced their hand into making what was effectively a Mission Pack Sequel. Not saying both were bad games by any stretch, but looking at them with a better view of how the industry works, you can see how PD's fastidiousness suddenly wasn't going to be able to keep up with how the gaming landscape was changing.
Fast forward to GT Sport. A more online-centric game, with set spec racing being the priority compared to a monstrous car count, and being done on developer friendly hardware means they were able to get this one out relatively quickly. The downside is core fans were confused that their massive GT career mode was now gone. This ultimately led to them going hard doing a proper GT7 whilst sticking a bandage on Sport with the GT League in the meantime.
Here's the problem though. I'm sure PD wanted to put far more events into the game. More avenues to earn money, more ways to earn these expensive vehicles. But I just think that, more than ever before, they were pushed into getting this out as soon as they could. We have a mentality from big publishers these days to just 'ship now, fix/finish later', and for the most part that is the rule, not the exception. Why have PD take up time and resources, not making money, when they can just ship it, gain a huge surge of initial sales based on name alone and then do massive updates later? By the time we're all having problems with the game, it's too late; we've already bought it. And you know what? 95% of customers won't care, because they're conditioned to this by now.
10 years ago, everybody kicked up a storm when SimCity required an internet connection, and voted EA the worst company in all of America partly because of that (beating out BP of all people, who had dumped millions of gallons of oil into the ocean a year or two prior). Now? It's very much 'oh well, guess I'm not playing this game I paid £70 for ¯\(ツ)/¯'. People are just ambivalent about it. I shouldn't have to worry when my £90 steelbook of the game will just become a fancy paperweight, I should be able to just play it whenever, like with GT1 - 6.
As for the "micro"transactions, there is no excuse. This is a fully fledged, fully priced (dare I say, overpriced, like most of Sony's 1st party games) release. Free-to-play games get dragged through the mud for them, but that's their shtick, that's how they recoup their development money and make a profit. But when big name games have them, people just go 'oh, they're only an option, you don't have to buy them'. They shouldn't be there at all, period. This isn't even a Halo/COD situation where it's a cosmetic either. Car collecting is a core aspect of the game, yet you're currently gimped from doing that due an economy that doesn't work. I'm not saying they should do a Forza and just throw cars and money at you from the start. The slow GT grind is what most people like. But in it's state right now, there are no feasible means of getting access to the content without either paying up or cheating the system (which you can't do anymore, go figure).
Sorry for the rant, but it's a shame to see since there is still a very good game at the core here, one that's sadly been sullied by the demands of the publisher and complacence of the average customer.
