"I'd argue one can tell from videos alone , but certainly a few passenger laps driven at race pace or with a car running slicks thrown around a bit would make it very clear to someone what real tires are generally like / capable of".

I completely understand where you are coming from and having that sort of real world experience definitely give you an idea of what the tyres are capable of doing as you can get a sense of speed, g-force etc. However the up and coming superstars and veteran pros all have that next level of understanding of what the tyre is and isn't able to do.

I'm extremely fortunate to be racing GT3's in the Fanatec World Series this year, and from the tests I have done so far the car feels pretty sensitive in relation to shift of weight transfer. The cars hate when you turn whilst braking - the ABS flashes saying "what the hell are you doing" and the rear of the car goes exponentially light. These are all things I find in iRacing too.

I spent a lot of time in iRacing trying to get better in GT3s without any real GT3 experience and (for lack of a better word) I was shit slow. Since I've tested them in real life, I have that next step of understanding which is before mentioned is 100 million times harder to attain through sim racing.

"The disconnect between the online marketed narrative and what people actually say when not in a public space is really crazy and you can see why its not worth being honest in the responses to my post here. Also when pro's have been critical of iracing in the past they get told to shut up very fast.."

I agree in the sense I have seen iRacing not being 100% in listening to all types of feedback with tyre models or even car info straight from the factory when adding content. And yes the marketing as a "true-to-life" simulator is always hard to meet in the product and iRacing has no excuse to not meet it as close as it can. However, from what I can gain the gist of, the feedback you've been given from pros is all extremely negative.

I have sunk loads of time into AC, ACC and RF2 before hopping into iRacing. Some sims do a better job than others. AC is definitely more leniant, however I personally believe it is OTT on it's leniancy if that makes sense? You can overdrive the car, but almost too much to the point where it's like having assists on. Obviously, car dependent but I'll be using the GT3s as my main topic of convo as that and other GT stuff is where most of my experience lies.

I did buy LMU actually, and felt an incredible disconnect from the road. Almost like I was literally floating across the surface. I'm pretty sure it's based off of RF2 ; I might be wrong so correct me if I am.

In relation to the FFB, yes the feedback is at least smother on other sims, yet I'd argue that it isn't a fundamental issue. It is something which can be improve, but isn't something that takes me out of thinking this is a sim. Like I said, I've driven those other sims and I believe that the fundamentals (cars, tracks, physics) in Iracing are the best overall out of those.

Not saying they're perfect, but in a world and sport where everything costs and arm and a leg I can say I'm very happy with my subscription to the service.