if the alternative to this is opening up a Garage Editor, and using hacks (for lack of a better word) to give myself a car that doesn't exist..
If someone could post up an equally intelligent debate to my point I'd be more than interested to read it
Just to clarify: There is one Garage editor program you can use to only add cars that are actually in the game. With this same Garage editor you cannot mod without using additional programs to do so.
But yes people do use modded/hacked cars to cheat, and I will never argue with that.
Yes I do mod, but can honestly say I have never used one in a real online race, only friendly "cruise room random races" where most people are in mods.. I think is BS when people use them in serious races.. Especially when they argue and say "its not hacked" (squeaky voice or typed of course) and your sitting there looking at their tires poking out and 18,000RPMs showing on the tach..
And it gets even more infuriating when your getting beat by someone in a drag room and hover over their name and see they are running "sports softs" *cough, cough* Racing Super Softs...
But fairly enough I do enjoy it, I completed all the races and licenses and collected all but 1 car long before modding was around, so yes it did bring an old game "new life" for me. What I do "personally" with my cars is not effecting anyone.
I started modding for my own entertainment simply for a lot of reasons you have also stated:
Good drag rooms= essentially gone, except with trustworthy friends, but they've all but given up because of it.
Good high speed runs=modded 0 downforce
Good race rooms=modded drivetrains and aeros..
So yes if you want to run clean, unfortunately you just have to have goo friends that you can trust.. And new friends like that are getting hard to come by...