Personally I don't see examples of alleged attribute boosting, or of refs being biased. I've been playing on Legendary through 09/10/WC/11 and never felt that I've been unfairly treated by the refs in comparison to my CPU opponent. The AI doesn't suddenly decide to be impossible to score against, it can just feel like that when something doesn't fall your way. People (better than me at this game) can play on Legendary and win, it's never literally impossible. I honestly think all of this, including things like 'speed catchup', is perceived rather than actually happening.
Those perceptions may well come about from some elements not being perfectly well balanced, but I think a large chunk of it is also down to gamer paranoia. We don't trust the game because it's controlling itself, our egos make us refuse to believe we can be beaten fairly by a machine, we like things to go our own way when we're playing something for our own entertainment, and as football/sports fans we have an instinctively myopic impartiality towards our own side.
Personally I play on Legendary because I crave the challenge. I play 10 minute matches and I don't need to score/win to enjoy myself... in fact if winning matches starts becoming an
expectation then I'll begin to lose interest. Football games, in fact video games in general, are most enjoyable to me when I feel like the odds are stacked against and I have to strategise a way of overcoming it. That's the whole point of games, isn't it?
I re-played the entire
Company of Heroes campaign using infantry only. It was fun to find ways of taking on enemy vehicles without vehicles of my own. Unfair, sure! Masochistic at times. But engaging. I find that if the game isn't capable of slapping you down every now and then, I think it just becomes routine. You might as well have a one-button control pad with 'I win' written on it.
If some things are perceived as unfair, like the AI's propensity for the cross-header 'autogoal', well... there's a challenge for you right there. Get better at jostling to win the header. Become more proficient at positioning your fullback to block more crosses at source. Don't let the opponent work the ball wide so easily. Give the ball away less often in the first place
. Is it fair and well-balanced that their crossing is so accurate so often? Hell no. But how satisfying when you still win the game.
If you find that more frustrating than fun, or have a fundamental disagreement with having to compete on what you consider not to be a level playing field, then that's more than understandable. Stick to the medium difficulties, as is everyone's perogative. But my opinion is that there are some misconceptions and exaggerations that surround the higher difficulty settings, which can become self-perpetuating.
That is an 18+ scandal LOL 
?
and hoping for the best then yes, you're going to be disadvantaged. I don't believe it magically boosts itself just because it's in your penalty area.
but my player takes 1 second to do the pass due to his circumstances. But the CPU player that WILL intercept the pass starts to react to it and run to the point of intersection BEFORE the pass is executed. That simply shows how CPU is having exact information that shouldn't have in advance. The same happens with dribbling, there are times in which the cpu starts to react to a sliding tackle the moment I press the button, not when the actual animation of sliding begins.
