Agree they race more realist but it's the AI awareness of you on track is the issue. I'm BTCC fanboy I know it gets bumpy out there , don't mind the love taps but it's the full on shunts are the spoiler.
Those are rarely a problem in my experience.
No, let me rephrase that. It's rarely a problem when racing against the correct AI level.
A lot of the complaints on the S3 forums can be tracked down to people not taking the time (for whatever reason) to find their correct level, or even worse, try racing adaptive with pre-patch data in their index-file.
Also, people seem to think that if they can race one combo at level 110, that means they can race all combos at that level.
In reality, my own level ranges from 98 (GT3 at Nords) to 120 (NSU at Norisring).
Trying to run either combo at the reverse level would end in an unmitigated disaster.
Again, I'm not a blinkered fan-boy. I'm fully aware (as is S3 presumably) that there are trouble-spots with certain combos, and I'll be the first to admit that the collision-physics needs some serious looking at.
But on the other hand, over the past few weeks, I've taken combos that people on the S3 forums have claimed were un-raceable, and with a single exception managed to do just fine in all of them.
So it's a combination of a lot of things. There are various issues concerning the AI, and some of the older tracks have less than optimal AIW lines programmed. Never go to the inside of T2 at Nürburgring for example, they'll shunt you off in an instant.
And while I won't just dismiss people as being bad drivers, some of the videos I've seen posted as evidence of bad AI, have also shown some pretty crappy race-craft to be honest.