That's an interesting point about the length of games. I too prefer shorter games these days, and apart from a few exceptions, I find any sort of grindy content in games annoying. I also don't really care about DLC for most games, because once I'm done with the main story of a game, I'm usually only pleased that it's over, and just the thought of having to start a new quest line or something makes me shy away from any additional content.
I played some art of rally again, and it's still a lot of fun. Having played some more "serious" rally games lately, I noticed that my experience has helped me learn to handle the cars in Art of Rally as well. The car physics still feel a bit too floaty, even though I think it has been tweaked a little once or twice since the initial release, but it's still fun. After playing EA WRC, the track design feels a bit too simple - a few obstacles or small rocks on the side of the road would make things a lot more exciting, and I hate how you can't usually tell how much you can cut in corners without getting a time penalty. And you'd think that the time penalty would be enough, but the game has that infuriating "fade out + reset car to the middle of the road" effect too. I also wish that there was a career mode or something similar in the game, but none of the available game modes are particularly interesting, especially when the times by the AI opponents feel a bit random most of the time.
Art Of Rally has been on my wishlist for ages, I really should pull the trigger at some point. Their new game, Golden Lap, looks great too. Not a lot of good racing management sims.