@Raikan
To be honest, it just sounds like you haven't played enough FM14. I started my current pentagon challenge as Venezia in Serie C/1A and I've had to undergo a very deep dive into tactics to really improve consistency. I started off like most players on this forum with 2 tactics in mind - an attacking/possession style soccer for home games, and a fast/counter style soccer for away games. I looked at some forum tactic examples and made them into my own to better suit my lower class of players. I also used automatic opposition instructions and mainly affected the game through shouts & substitutions. I also used comprehensive highlights so I could better see what was going on with the match.
This seemed to work pretty well at first, though every once in a while I'd drop a bizarre game here and there. Through luck & constant tactic tinkering without really understanding it all I got promoted to Serie B.
Then I had to delete all my tactics, because brainless attacking/possession and counter/direct pass led me to relegation playoffs. I encountered all the same frustrations that everyone's posted about on the forums. I would go on a 3-game win streak against league leaders, only to drop the next 5 games against bottom of table teams. And yes, the fact that almost all my players were only 1-3 stars had a small part to do with it, but I recognized the larger problem at hand was tactics (specifically, trying to force a group of random players into one tactic designed my random forum people rather than looking at my best players and building a tactic that best suits their strengths and makes perfect football sense), individual player instructions (attacking and defending set pieces), and opposition instructions, especially when the AI changes formations and brings on substitutes.
So I designed 5 or 6 tactics with mixed results and finally settled on 3 to use mid-season in Serie B. My approach was to have one primary tactic (for both home and away games). My primary tactic, however, consistently had problems against 4-4-2 and 4-2-4, so I designed a variation to deal with them (and only against teams that used those formations). My third tactic was a defensive possession tactic to help hold a lead (crowding the d-line and midfield).
I began selecting additional opposing players to mark/close down before the match (because auto-instructions never does enough, I almost always have to add on more). I also had the opposing team's formation and players box open during the match to spot any substitutions or formation changes. Substitutions never have any opposition instructions set unless you manually do them (and I can't be bothered to also check their bench pre-match, so I do it the moment they make a sub). And whenever the AI changed formations, if they changed to my weakness (in my case, 4-4-2 or 4-2-4), I would respond appropriately.
What happened in the 2nd half of the season was I only dropped 3 matches in total, climbed from 14th to 3rd, won the Italian Cup, and won promotion playoffs. I stopped conceding goals to corners. I started converting from set pieces (long throws from goal-line, corners, and free kicks outside their box). I dramatically cut down my off-side shots. I stopped throwing matches after half-time due to AI subs/formation changes. This with a pretty trash team (I had 2 players with 4-star ratings, and 1 with 3.5 stars. All the teams I played had full 4-5 stars)
One of the 3 matches dropped was against a Serie A team which I still won on aggregate. Nonetheless I still managed to beat 2 strong Serie B teams and 4 strong Serie A teams throughout the Italian Cup with a team of mostly 2-3 star players. My underdog team with tactics designed for these 2-3 star players was consistently beating any team that came across their way, most of them fielding 4-5 star players. No cheese, I just do my best to have 50 possession and make sure that most of my shots are on-target and most of my opponents shots are long-range/off-target. And for every 2-3 star first team member, I had another 2-3 star backup player in case of injuries (of which there were many because FM14 trolls hard with injuries, once had 4 of my players with red injuries in a single game)
To conclude, FM14 will be a frustrating game for many players who don't want to invest the time to learn the tactics system. Downloaded plug and play tactics might work, they might not. The latter is more likely if you're not using the same team that owner of the tactic is also using. FM14 will also be utterly confusing to someone who doesn't spend time viewing a match on comprehensive/extended, because match stats and "clear cut chance/goal scoring" moments can only tell you so much - it's more important to actually see what's going right and wrong throughout the match. Are your on-target shots weak-sauce shots from outside of the box? Are your off-target shots from a striker inside the box but who is in poor form? Is your possession in your half of the field (forced to be defensive) or actually offensive possession? Who is making great passes and through balls to create chances, and who is just making boring passes that result in nothing but a small bump in that possession % stat? This is information that actually matters.