Agreed, the seasons mechanic as implemented are far from ideal. I get the feeling this poor implementation is yet another casualty of the game’s online first focus, because if players could pick a desired season in offline mode, it would make playing offline superior to online freeroam, and further reduce the number of players in online freeroam. So instead they made the game worse for everyone.
Don’t get me wrong, the different seasons are neat, but they don’t change everything, and forcing seasons on players was absolutely the wrong decision IMHO.
I doubt the devs will fix anything with the seasons at this point, but if I could give one suggestion it would be that there should be a menu option to change the season at any time, both in solo and online freeroam. For online freeroam, just match up players who have chosen the same season. Go ahead and keep the seasonal events in the “current” season for some variety, but let players otherwise play the game in the season of their choosing. Additionally, offline players and players in a private freeroam adventure should be able to choose time of day and weather from the pause menu for photo and such.
Hopefully the next Forza will be more focused on being a great game instead of treating players like a commodity to be used to bolster online metrics.