Folks who like to tell your these games are "sim lite" like to move the goalposts to fit their superiority narrative - they kind of believe deep down they are real racing drivers. So if you say "it has damage" they'll move the goalpost to "how detailed the damage."
Best to ignore them and get on with enjoying the games.
Haha, I've noticed this a lot. First GT and Forza had inferior driving physics and now that they've made enormous strides to close that gap, the hardcore PC sim people pick something else that PC sims are better at (while ignoring everything that GT/Forza is better at). PC sims have yet to provide even close to the car selection of GT and Forza whereas GT and Forza are less punishing/realistic with regard to damage. So people taking sides are silly since they both have their pros and cons.
EDIT: I'm not sure why people are suddenly disappointed in the car selection for pCARS considering they could have just looked it up already... It's not like any of this was super secret info being kept from the backers. Practically all the info you could want about this game is out there.