[archibalduk]

AFAIK very few non-NA rules are actually in the game. For the most part, I think we're using NA rules with slight tweaks. Certainly from my own research area within Europe, my leagues are nothing like they are in real life. Compare that to the NHL and many of the rules are there already. I don't think adding promotion/relegation (nor any of the handful of Euro-specific rules in the game) can really be blamed for all of the bugs in the game or from distracting the devs from developing the game. I don't think it's a fair argument that the many leagues take time and attention from work on other aspects of the game. It's been said time and again that the late addition of the custom mode primarily contributed to the rushed/buggy features/UI.

Yes, there are some Euro bugs, but that only accounts for a very small number of the issues. Equally, there's more to hockey than the NHL. It's interesting that the vast majority of DB researchers are actually interested in Euro leagues - and IIRC the devs mentioned a while back that most of the people who purchased the game reside outside of North America.

Paying people to research clearly wouldn't work. The devs rely on a very small number of researchers to do the DB work. I don't think many of us would be willing to quit our jobs and work on DB research full time in exchange for a salary. There would be no job security or career prospects - hence why it's normal to rely on volunteer researchers (e.g. OOTPB and Football Manager). If I were to work on the DB full time rather than during evenings/weekends, my research would not be any better - I'd just get it done more quickly. It's not going to improve/affect the accuracy.

Thankfully I suspect this is all moot as I haven't seen anything to indicate that the devs want to drop development of the Euro side of the game. And I'll continue working hard to research my area for the game as long as that remains the case.