I agree that they're outdated, but they still work the same they did back when they first came out in FIFA 13. The animations are different due to the engine changes of course, but overall, yeah a lot of the same. The difference is in how much impact over the years and what consequences come from it. Fast forward to your point about 50 Sprint vs 20, it's a massive difference because Sprint has always meant speed, sure, but it also means extra frames (abrupt stop vs sliding), however can come with its consequences if too low or too high. What can be different over the years is pass error. There were FIFA's where raising pass error meant the ball would lift above the ground and move like a beachball, but there were also FIFA's where pass error was true to its value.
The sliders are always relative to one another though, so adjusting pass error, may mean adjusting pass speed because the contact quality improves with that combination.
Overall, you're right, it should be 1+1 = 2, but it's more like 1+1=2+strawberry-hamster.
I don't think EA looks at sliders and tells us to go fix it. I think they leave it there as a feature and whatever adjustments are done to the general gameplay from each iteration just inadvertently adjust the sliders because of its global impact within the game. The yearly intrigue is how the general gameplay gets affected by non-slider-related values such as team tactics and individual player skills. Now, from there, we have to dig deeper to ensure the slider values aren't so strong that they overtake the expected tactical outcome such as if marking was so high that a high press team would over-mark or would get confused on who to mark. Or run frequency is too low to the point a fast build-up team with numbers only sends their forward on the runs.
What we do is focus on the general gameplay where it's a lot of feel and exploration of thresholds that don't break and cause other issues. Some will say sliders don't do anything and they're pointless, that's fine. I'm confident in how long we've been doing this and what details stand out in comparison to where they started. My word of advice is if you didn't like the previous iteration of the game, you probably won't like this year's - and I don't think sliders will help you with that. If you did tolerate FIFA 23, and maybe even enjoyed it with the sliders, then FC24 is just building off of that enjoyment with some additional gameplay positives.
