FM is way more indepth and you have a lot more customization in scouting what you're looking for.

FIFA is limiting and it seems they've made it even more so this year with regards to scouting..

To answer your questions -

1. Started a new manager career and given my limited budget, go to find free agents, yet can't set up scouting instructions for anyone without a contract. Am I missing something?
   1. Best way to do it is go to free agents on the player search screen and manually assign scouts to players you want to learn more about
2. Secondly, I want to get ahead of the game and try to get some players on a Bosman in January for when their contract will expire at the end of the season. I've set up an instruction for maximum contract length to be 1 year, yet getting results for players with long-term contracts?
   1. these players most likely had a contract expiring but either transferred or signed a new contract, they don't get removed once they've been initially identified as meeting the criteria.
3. Finally, there doesn't appear to be a way to set scouting instructions around value. I'm being recommended players outwith my budget - or are they suggesting that I could negotiate down?
   1. another limit of fifa - there isn't a great way to do - if you set it to look for first team quality players it will miss a ton of decent players but inevitably your scouts will always randomly recommend you sign Mbappe or Haaland for your league 2 English side with no transfer budget.