I agree with you, these were all gripes I had early on with the game. I'm something of an obssessive with PES so when I get it I play it constantly and PES2011 feels like an 'unfinished' product.
That's the feeling that I get from both PES11 and FIFA11, these are unfinished video games.
I think that PES feels like FIFA now, it's the same thing as far as I'm concerned, you have a pretentious passing system that is marketed as "manual" when in fact it is very assisted, and then you have the fact that the new passing system does not make sense when you consider the rest of the game.
Which is why both PES11 and FIFA11 have ridiculous balancing acts, because the passing system and the shooting system are not compatible with the rest of the game....
It is impossible to affect movement inside the space because it is only possible to affect movement through space, that's the main problem, whomever disagrees with the mentioned fact has little idea of what they are talking about.
The new shooting system, it gives more importance to the positioning of the body, which seems like a good idea on paper; however, when you consider the fact that you cannot use the left analog stick in order to determine the direction in terms of movement inside the space (body positioning) before you actually use the the left analog stick in order to determine the direction of the shot....
Well.... the new shooting system, as well as the new passing system, does not click in with the rest of the game, which is why the game feels unfinished, which is why the ridiculous scripting is necessary in order to blend-in contradictory ideas that would otherwise be incompatible.
It is the same thing that EA Sports has done with FIFA for the last two years, not touching the core flaws and yet implementing "new" elements that are not actually compatible with the rest of the game.... As a result, you get a ridiculously scripted video game....
Example, if you shot with David Villa the computer can and will decide that his body positioning before the shot was shit, and you will not score the goal, even though it looked simple enough; on the other hand, when you do the same exact thing with Sergio Busquets, the computer can and will decide that his body positioning will be spot on, and you score a goal with Busquets when just a minute ago David Villa inexplicably decided to have shit body positioning.
That's the type of thing that happens when the user cannot manually determine movement inside the space: the computer will script the game for you.
Which is why the stats are not a big factor for me, I cannot manually use the stats, I can only direct the left analogue stick and let the computer take care of how the stats work.
PES11 is, in my opinion, a dumb and simplistic video game with difficult execution.
Player individuality should stand out easily, with PES11, you need hours of getting a feel for the game before you can start noticing all the little differences, because the number of animations that can be implemented into a video game where the user cannot manually determine movement inside the space is a very limited number or space, which is why player individuality is crammed into an outdated system where the user needs hours of play before getting a proper feel of what "player individuality" actually is in the game.
PES started with a cool idea, player individuality, the potential always was that PES could eventually evolve into a video game where the user manually uses the player individuality as opposed to the player individuality working in accordance to something that the user cannot affect.
Unfortunately, a decade after, player individuality still is the same automatic-scripted bullshit, and I don't see it changing in 2012, it's just great business for Konami.
EDIT
I fully respect the opinions of whomever likes PES11, including the opinions of 777 and Ali and other people who think that PES11 is a decent video game.