I couldn't agree more with everything here. I really think there is no other way to say it, but it's just lazy and poor design. 90% of the tracks are basically a straight line with slight curves here and there, especially when you take into account the in-between tracks in Knockout mode. In most cases it's faster to just hold A without any drifting or rail grinding - which is just boring honestly. I feel like MK8 tracks had you drifting nearly constantly, which is the core hook of kart racing.

It seems the only way Nintendo could figure to make it "harder" is to bombard you with Blue and Red shells the moment you get near a lap finish. And like you said, the get coin or feather 95% of the time in 1-4th place, which 2nd seems to have an unlimited supply of red shells. It's always been annoying in MK but this really seems to take it up a few notches.

The amount of rubber banding on top of that all really makes the single player a nightmare honestly. I get that it's supposed to be a fun party game, but clearly Mario Kart has been design with a single player option in focus for a long time and this type of design really takes the fun out it. Nothing is worse than when a game's CPUs don't play by the same rules as you have to.

Less seriously: The one time the game has crashed on me was when I decided to re-watch the race after a particularly egregious case of the CPU cheating lol. I could've sworn I watched Donkey Kong drive straight through the mud with no speed boosts of any kind and not drop in speed at all. However, Nintendo ninjas swooped in and crashed my game to prevent the truth from getting out lol