The underlying point relating is that, no matter how we call it, the system is ill-designed for both career and outside of it, largely because it confuses watching the Car XP bar fill up with engaging gameplay that will make you care about digital cars.
I’d note that what you did with your Miata, you could have done without this system. That wouldn’t have prevented others from going straight with a 500 PI build if that’s their thing.
And I’m dead serious here, if you feel an affinity for a car, it should be natural to spend more time playing with it. Like I want to drive all the cars at least once, but there are still some cars I’ll drive again and again, and spend more time on the build, and spend time on a livery. Not because the game forces me to grind for springs and a turbo, but because I “fell in love” on my own terms.
A game cannot decide for you when that happens. And it cannot be designed with the assumption it will happen, or die trying to make it happen. That can never work. And here, it clearly doesn’t.
You say it yourself, you had to find a way to enjoy this system. But I submit that really, you don’t enjoy this system, you instead enjoy spending time with the Miata. Not because the system made you like it, but because you actually just like it.
At the end of the day, it’s abundantly clear to me that not much thought has been put into the whole system, nor its recent patch, when I’m going through the vintage hatch series with an AE86 that now has access to most handling upgrades and a good chunk of power upgrades after 3 races, and I’m 298 PI, with a limit at 400 that might be going up to 500 after the next race. In fact, so far, only one series (out of 12) had me hit the PI limit.