Unfairness and balancing issues plaguing otherwise fun game

I love what Criterion has been doing with the Need For Speed series so far, even though I feel can't help shake the feeling that the latest Most Wanted is designed around Multiplayer only, considering it just lacks focus and the Most Wanted drivers basically have no personality which made the original MW so compelling and pushed you to read to the top of the table. Despite all that its a really fun game, but at times I find it annoying due to some design and balancing issues. I list some of the problems with the game:

• Shaking off cops can be difficult to impossible especially when you heat meter cross over 3 or 4 mark. The problem is once it reaches, say level 3, the pursuit gets harder to shake off and hence it takes more time. The longer the time it takes to shake off the pursuit, it gets even harder to loose the cops and eventually it becomes impossible.
• Cops can setup road blocks, spike trips and not to mention unlimited supply of patrol cars, but we racers hardly have any weapon fight them this time, unlike Hot Pursuit. Please bring those weapons back, which in turn will help with the 1st bullet point.
• Most of the time I just want a regular race online: be it circuit, sprint, or any variation of that with cops. At times online I played for over an hour for just one race. A playlist will help a lot.