LFS comes as close to providing a sense of driving a race car as any other sim out there. In the future when the computers become more and more powerful, people will build simulators that mimic reality even better. Right now driving in LFS and driving in real life require in some ways similar but in other ways fundamentally different skill sets. Fortunately, LFS is right there on the "frontier" of commercially available simulators.
As to people who cry about "unrealistic" features? I say use common sense. Not everybody has a clutch pedal in their posession, so things like "auto-clutch" are essential for the game to become popular among casual gamers. On the other hand every "driver's aid" should have an option to be turned off. That's one reason I don't like the current race start system, there is no way to turn it off.
And I do side with people who want a "hardcore" mode, because it would be a very easy solution to appease everybody as long as you keep separate records for "hardcore" and "casual" players on LSFW. That way casual gamers can stick to the regular servers, and die-hard racers can compete in the hardcore mode.