I know this is pretty much comparing apples to oranges, but in the very rudimentary FCD soccer sim WIS has here, we have current player ratings but NO projections. And it has been pretty much proven that player development is dependent on playing time plus hidden ratings. That's right, it's kinda random and you don't really know if your stud rookie is going to become a superstar or plateau out for some unknown reason... all you can do is play them and find out.
Seems a hell of a lot more realistic than some made up advance rating, which makes me buy MikeT's assessment... the only reason Adv Scouting exists in this game looks like it was put in to fluff up trading.