Several months on many sims, without playing AC1 that much. This is my conclusion how we could get the perfect sim.
Best driving simulator: Assetto Corsa (and it's not even close)
Best force feedback: Assetto Corsa, Automobilista 1, rF2/LMU
Most annoying flaws/issues: Assetto Corsa (lack of blue flag/outlap ai, lack of modern F1 rules, bad oval physics, no rolling starts etc)
Best kerb physics: Le Mans Ultimate
Best F1 game: F1 2020 (I absolutely love that game, superb, GOAT of all F1 games)
Best AI: F1 2020 (people argue that F125 but its rain AI is broken)
Best features in a sim: Automobilista 2 (rolling starts, good oval ai etc)
Best graphics: ACC / EVO? (actually I don't even care, they all look good enough)
Best driving GT3 cars: Le Mans Ultimate
Best rally game: Richard Burns (AC Rally when 1.0 is out?)
Most fun to play rally game: Dirt Rally 2 (my personal favorite, I know it's a bit arcadeish but it's so much fun)
Best online sim: iRacing
Most promising new sim: AC Rally
Most revolutionary sims: Geoff Crammond F1 games and RF1 set the standards for 10 years. RBR and AC1 set the standards for the next 10-15 years (still the standards which is sad).
Worst GUI/menus ever made: rF2 (I love the driving but can't use it because the menu system is horrendous)
Forgotten decent sims:
Raceroom (it's free now and after the update it's pretty good), Live For Speed (nobody remembers this classic, it drove well)
Conclusion:
If we could combine AC1's driving feel and FFB and modding possibilities with AMS2's features and iRacing's online system, AI from F12020, we'd have a perfect sim.
I'd love to praise EVO but I'm not feeling it... it's not bad but driving feels too much like ACC... AC1 driving feels so much more natural to me.
*disclaimer: Some people claim that F12021-2024 had even better ai, but those games were bad so I haven't played and tested them excessively. Either way, the ai is on completely different level in those games and all "hardcore sim developers" should be ashamed how atrocious the sim ai's generally are. AMS2 and LMU have half decent ai's.
What do you think? Is my list even close?