I agree. This style of handling is common in newer NFS games and probably what I miss the most from the older games. I particularly dislike the grip-vs-drift upgrades, especially since drift is mostly "press X to drift".
That being said, I did find some cars fun to drive in once they're tuned a little, and I liked that different cars could have significantly different feel, which unfortunately can't be said about all NFS games, especially the newer ones.
I think this is a very important point that too few people are raising and it's getting buried under the spam of "switch to Firefox" messages. Yes, switching to Firefox is an option. But clearly some people don't want to do it, and we give them these workarounds without saying what they really do and without highlighting that they are potentially dangerous. You use your browser for a large part of your interaction with your computer, so any downgrade in security is going to be significant. To me, the short-term implications of this are far more important than the longstanding Chrome-vs-Firefox discussion.