I think a rally discussion is important enough to warrant its own thread. Incoming rant.
WRC cars - no. I'm assuming they had to pay for licensing, and what does PD have to show for it? No real-life stages, no remotely decent stages at all. If I see WRC as a licensed series, I want to see a product that remotely represents the WRC. Which is not what we saw in GT5. The GT5 rally stages were ridiculously wide, the AI was slow, the stages were bland. I've played far, far superior rallying games on the PSX.
Despite all that, PD thought making the player sit through 40 seconds of waiting before starting each stage would make the rallying component immersive. Cherry-picking the most tedious aspects of reality, and ignoring the most exciting and captivating parts.
PD is clearly better off focusing on rallycross, because creating closed circuits is what they invest their time in anyway. The problem with rallycross in GT is that some tracks are just too narrow (Toscana, Eiger Nordwand), and the track is so dusty that it makes driving in close proximity without crashing close to impossible for most. Brands Hatch is an example of a good rallycross circuit, half gravel/mud and half tarmac, like Cathedral Rocks. Like Cathedral Rocks there's the twistier gravel sections, and there's some wide sections for passing.
If "rally" in the broadest sense was included in the next games, I hope they just quit calling it "Dirt Events" and just call it rallycross, make appropriate tracks, and have the appropriate cars. Another issue I see with rallycross is that I've barely seen it appear on the online lobby, unless someone voted Random on a course vote and accidentally ended up with a 10km gravel circuit. I sure don't want to be racing offline on GT ever again if the AI is as poor as it currently is.
All things considered, it's a waste of everyone's time to have such a half-baked rally section as seen in GT5. It had the basics of a proper rally, which was a first for the series, but unless it's vastly improved, I don't think PD will do rally justice. I voted no.