@NineCloudNine has pretty much said it all. Also, he's not saying you can't have a view, he's simply explaining his. Of course you can have an opinion - we all can.
Regards your first question, the mates I have who play / played it simply didn't have the time to play 1-2 games a day, with work & family commitments etc. They managed a few hours in an evening once every two or three weeks if they were lucky.
Your second question pretty much ties in with my first answer. Because they were only able to play it occasionally, I think they wanted more of a quicker target e.g. winning a cup, qualifying for Europe etc, than slowly plodding away to build a team that's financially sound, with a squad that's building slowly, the youngsters coming through, improving the facilities, my chipping away at the coaching badges etc. I do this is lower league, where I have always played. That is success to me. To a lot of people, they would find this boring & want the success of trophies. A couple of my mates said if they had all the time in the world to play, they would never play the game as I do. No right or wrong, just comes down to how every individual enjoys the game.
That's why after reading @NineCloudNine post, I took a different viewpoint. Rather than how i've thought for around the last three versions of FM, that Gegenpress was a nuisance, that it made the game much easier - in my opinion that is, I could then understand the use of it for players with little time and / or wanted quicker glory.
Hope you're enjoying the game