brad:
a) IIRC, they're actually making PE more loose. I think that everyone in the league will be 100% at two positions... so if that happens, the opposite of what you want is going to take place (more pfs able to play sf; more cs able to play pf)
b) Yeah... Barkley was probably about a 60 at his peak, and most of his "defense" was big play steals/blocks, not tough man defense. He was a better help defender, but as a man defender, he had to be really motivated, which didn't happen often (and still, he had physical limitations that made him not that effective even when he was trying). This impact on the sim is huge (see a & c). Don't even want to talk about Troy Murphy, but it's funny that those two guys are the guys you bring up, because they make up 2/3 of the deadliest front court in the $42M sim right now. Again, see point c.
c) This will change the scope of the sim. Hopefully. Right now, it's incredibly easy to load up on "too much offense" without being penalized for it. Threes are really broken in the sim, so if you load up on paint and threes (my Barkley/Wilt experiment has exploded... so many teams use Barkley/Wilt + three bombers now. It's sad, really) and get more rebounds than your opponent, you win. Rebounds are the most important part right now, but efg% closely follows that, and the biggest effect on efg% is threes. And it really helps that one of your paint monsters can play the 3, gives you lots of boards (esp. on the offensive side) and while he has better defense in the sim than IRL, it's low enough that he's about $2-million cheaper than he should be (Barkley, of course). Throw in your lockdown defender Troy Murphy, and he covers Barkley's weakness of defense (lol). He grabs tons of defensive boards, has a huge efg% (tons of threes) and low tov%. Go ahead and drop $13.5M on 66-67 Wilt... you'll have PLENTY of money to pick up offense in the backcourt. I mean, you can grab 3400 minutes from Glen Rice for $4.6M. Sure, he only has 20 defense but your team will be shooting 55%+ from the field so what does it matter if they shoot 49%? Tons of great PGs available that you can pick up now with all the cash you've got left. You can be completely unoriginal and use Steve Nash. Or maybe Chauncey Billups. Or KJ. Or if you really want to be stupid, 08-09 Jason Kidd! You'll still have plenty of money to spend on back-ups (more threes, please).
Making offense more expensive (threes in particular) will change the entire scope of the sim. This is a good thing. I'm almost tired of paint-monster/bomber teams, but that's what wins.