Playing the game is not a grind. Seasonals give you unlimited "things to do" in Single Player to earn credits and XP. If you feel the need to have every car now and level 40 now, that's your choice.
The game was meant to be played over time, not finished in a few months. You get out of it what you put in.
First off seasonals haven't really been good (for me) outside the first two. Now they are just more unrestricted Aspec races missing both the challenge and payout that made the first round of seasonals so great (not to mention they aren't regular and they go away both of which I consider pretty hefty negatives - I shoudln't have to play my game on PD's schedule just to have some game to play).
Secondly the assumption that there is a grind ONLY if I want the game finished now is pretty flawed... no matter how long I stretch it out there is the same grind ahead of me... whether I cram it all into a few weeks or take it over years... the broken leveling system, the poor payouts/car prices are all still there.
The seasonals help with that a LITTLE in that they at least offer different races, but again, the races they do offer are broken in the fact that
I have to make the challenge...
I have to make the game... that's not how it's supposed to work. Seasonals round 1 and 2 were potential saviors for GT5 but those are long gone.
Also while you like the hyperbole of implying that anyone who doesn't want to grind for months or years to complete the game must want to finish it in a few months, the truth is that EVEN if you use seasonals to offset the grind, at only a handful a week you now MUST take years to finish the game... even if I don't want to finish it in a month, how is a solution that doles out little bits a week at a time forcing me to stretch the game out for years not also broken?
There is a lot of middle ground between squeeze it all in in a few months and foce me to take years to avoid a grind.
Lastly you are focusing on the symptom and telling me that it's my fault when the reality is the cause is the real problem and that is PD's fault.
I don't want to finish GT5 in 3 months... I enjoyed GT4 far longer than that and definitely wanted GT5 to last longer than that... I don't know where you get the idea that people who resort to shortcutting the grind WANT to finish the game fast... I just WANT to grind even LESS than I want to finish the game fast, THAT'S the problem and again thats not my fault... that's PDs fault.
So when you say playing the game is not a grind, I am sorry you are wrong. It is absolutely a grind. There are only 3 choices:
1: Grind - a LOT. If you stick only to on disc content (ie if you have no internet) you MUST grind.
2: Rely on seasonals to get around grinding. Great but seasonals haven't offered anything special or particularly enjoyable since season 2 and if you rely on this you get little dabs of things to do once every few weeks (unreliably) for years. Also bear in mind that you will probably STILL have to grind just to get the cars to participate in seasonals (*ahem* Ferrari Challenge *ahem*)
3: Take shortcuts. People don't do this because they want to... people didn't pay $60 in hopes they would have no better option than to shortcut their way through a badly laid out game. I am pretty sure almost everyone of us hoped for a game that would offer as many years of deep enjoyable content as it took to make the game... but given that that's not what we got and the other two options, I don't see how you can blame anyone for taking choice 3... not because they "WANT TO FINISH IN 3 MONTHS" but becuase they really DO NOT want to do the other two options and honestly there is only about 3 months of content in the game... the rest is artificial filler and THAT is what is being skipped.
BTW also remember seasonals are only a solution (in there limited fashion) if you have access to the internet. A surprisingly large portion of the world doesn't and for them the game is entirely broken.
