Quick DESCRIPTION of Shuffle Racing (for those who don't know)...
Shuffle racing was online racing where you would join a room, and instead of picking a car out of your own garage, you would be assigned a car model for the race. Depending on the shuffle settings, most people would be in a different car (with some being in the same car, depending on the settings).
You would be given a different car for the next race based on your finishing position in the last race.
They had some kind of algorithm to decide that. So you would perhaps be given a slightly better advantage car in the next race if you finished poorly in the last race.
In other words, the cars would be ballpark matched for speed & performance - you wouldn't have a kei car competing against a new performance car or whatnot.
And mostly it was luck, because obviously some cars might be slower than others on one track, but perform better on another track. So it wasn't an absolute system of parity, you understand.
But it made for somewhat closer racing among varied abilities, more than a 1-make race - where you would always have in a group of people, some people who were just better and would always do better.
In other words, it was a way to have mixed model racing, without any rules you had to think about, without having to set up your own car, and allowed for even more casual and lesser experienced drivers to have a chance of close racing and winning or placing well, and giving more experienced & more serious players extra challenge even if they were racing against more casual drivers they would ordinarily easily beat in a 1-make race.
You can see how this Shuffle set-up would appeal to a wide range of Gran Turismo racers.
A savvy Shuffle lobby host could easily keep the Shuffle settings to keep the racing close, fun, and varied, no matter who was in the room.
It saved people pressed for time, or not wanting the bother, the problem of finding similarly skilled racers to race with, as well as the problem of tuning or getting cars in their garage ready for online racing.
And what's more - if you did have a group of people who were closely matched, you could set the Shuffle settings to make sure the cars were very close. A smaller number of cars would be assigned, but they would be much more evenly matched.
So Shuffle in GT5 has been an option to appeal to a wide array of tastes & scenarios.
Including people interested in DIRTY racing.
A lot of people mention the fact that it was a good option for CLEAN online racing. And that's absolutely true.
But it was also an option that dirty racing fans liked, as I have often seen "Dirty Shuffle" lobbies running - and often they'd be nearly full rooms.
I can see how people would like this if they wanted dirty racing... because even dirty racing involves a certain attitude or "rules" if you will. And casual dirty racers ALSO like not having to set up cars all the time to participate in dirty online racing.
Anyway, just trying to emphasize that it's not just about "clean racing" options. Dirty racers also like shuffle. (Not just griefers - though they like shuffle too unfortunately! LOL)