Well obviously that is why they did it. Though I will say, it isn't needed. Buying +5 to shot power or speed is not going to take you from a bad player to a good player, or good player to elite player. You still have to have the sense to know what to do. When the game first came out, me, leaf, kg, krebs, and wr50l shut guys down all the time who you know were buying up things, had the gold helmets and other stupid equipment.
I have like 95 in all my shot things. That is all playing, getting my cards and getting the things I could. Yeah, I am not going to play 3 offline seasons to get a plus 5, but a lot of the good ones are fairly easy to get if you play OTP/EASHL.