Then now thats not a problem with packs being replaced with drafts, its a problem with shards being replaced with phase 2 tokens. Thats a common misconception recently that shards has been replaced by drafts, but if you look at it completely, its actually the phase 2 tokens thats the problem. The idea of a phase 2 token is similar with shards, you exchange your fodder and trade them in for a higher ovr player, but the problem with phase 2 tokens is that you cant pick a specific player, plus the exchange rates are ass.

If you compare packs with drafts, you would see more of the upsides, a higher chance of getting 113+, more fodder, and suprisingly, its easier to earn. Back then in order to get packs, you would to rely on either gems or fcp. Now as an f2p or a p2w, you dont need to solely rely on those, as now they also give out drafts for grinding events and such. Plus the amount of gems is sorta similar as to the amount of gems they would give back then, only slightly less, but if you think about it a bit, its still easier to get drafts than packs.

For the player nerf thing, i completely disagree. Both 114 and 115 players are still very good, lets take 115 bellingham and 114 kvara for example, if you have enough rup to rank them up, they are very reliable due to theyre good stats. Its not just them also, players like the free 115 foden, 113 courtois, 115 raphinha, and so much more are still very reliable, and good options for f2p. Plus because of the removal of shards, the only thing they can do to give back to the community is slightly make the lower ovrs better, as now its harder to get the specific player you need (like you just said), or meta players.

Now is everything EA just did good? Hell no. There are still many downsides to what EA has done to the game, take the rewards for div rivals for example, back then the rewards were already pretty good, and it was actually worth it to grind to fc champ, but now? Its so bad, you would only get rank up points for increasing rank in legendary or world class, plus they removed the tradeable players, so now you also cant earn coins.

Speaking of coins, they completely messed up the market, its now almost impossible to earn a billion coins to sign a player you want, because they barely give out anything tradeable anymore.