Although we are not calling the conventional “front engine, rear wheel drive” sedan that exist all over the roads the “front mid-engine, rear wheel drive” car, technically they are the same as a “front mid-engine, rear wheel drive” car in the game. This could make room for the Audi/Subaru-ish front Longitudinal engine layout, which will make the current engine configuration line-up more complete.
Maybe I’m dumb or it’s too late for me to think, but… what?
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I don’t know if that really would have any purpose in-game. It’d lower the center of gravity, sure, but it would make the nose way too long for anything but a boxer 4. Since we don’t have those yet, this layout is completely useless to me, at least. Plus, it puts the engine’s weight in front of the front axle, meaning it messes up your f/r weight ratio.
I really don’t see any practical reason to have it in the game.
Oh, and @szafirowy01 I believe that he’s meaning one of these bad boys. If he doesn’t, my whole post is invalid:
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It may not be practical for the game, but missing it will make the game somewhat unrealistic and incomplete.
It is a iconic and mass produced drivetrain after all, and the game is building upon a car designer which is closely resembled the real world car engineering. Missing this kind of drivetrain will remove the real world connection between the game, hence breaking the immersion.
As far as I understand it, the game won’t have that option because it just adds another option to the menu, but doesn’t add anything particularly interesting to the gameplay, other than slightly increasing the cabin space and making it slightly harder to make the car handle well.
The game will never be a completely accurate sim. After all, you already can’t adjust individual gear ratios, fuel mapping, cams e.t.c, all of which would have a much bigger impact than the difference caused by moving the engine a few centimeters further forward. Surely missing those thing should break your immersion too, if you’re already put off by this?
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Apart from making an understeer wagon that you’d have to tame. We do have RR layout which is a more interesting challenge to set up, so meh, not bummed out because of this.
Actually it’s a gripe of mine that the game does not modify interior space depending on engine size or orientation (only if the engine is fore or aft of the passenger compartment). The engine bay size is fixed.
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Actually missing individual gear ratios, more complex fuel mapping or cams does not bother me too much, or bother a casual player too much. Since the game is already complex and has set a very steep learning curve to casual players, it is understandable that compromise has to be made, and I am quite enjoy the simplified system of the current engine designer, and hopefully the future engine design revamp provide more freedom in engine design, but at the same time you can enjoy the game without a degree of engineering.
But for the drivetrain layout though, missing a very common drivetrain layout will be a deal breaker for the casual players who love cars, since they will be asking “why can’t i create a replica of a subaru.” And with the boxers are coming , since they are very wide, it is impossible to fit them in a front engine awd drivetrain in the current layouts (transverse mounted boxers will not fit in any chassis for obvious reasons, and the current front(-mid) longitudinal awd will have a half-shaft clipping through the engine).
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But what does it add?
You take the example of a casual player, but is a casual player really going to notice the difference between two cars, one with a front-mid engine and one with a front-front engine that are otherwise identical? Other than possibly handling a little bit worse, the front-front engine makes no gameplay-related difference to the car, which is why it will probably not be added.
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Personally, I would argue that missing more specific gear ratios, cam design and the fact we can’t have front-engined transaxles will make a SIGNIFICANTLY bigger impact to casual users. Sure, we can’t make certain Subaru’s (Potentially) without a FF-AWD option (Though I’d question how many casual car fans know the difference between front-front and front). But we can’t make a Viper, Corvette, SLR McLaren, numerous Ferraris, Porsche 928, numerous Aston Martins, and more without a transaxle. We can’t make any motor line up to its real-world equivalent without specific cam controls. We can’t make any car line up to its real world equivalent with gear ratios.
I think that’s why more users are clamoring for those things, rather than the placement of the engine in the front of the car. One benefits only a handful of cars. The others potentially benefit hundreds.
Understeer
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I played NFS Shift 2 that allows us to have 2 types of tuning, dumbed down and advanced mode.
Basically the dumbed down mode just gave us some kind of slider such as:
Gearing:
Short =====[]===== Long
Handling:
Understeer =====[]====== Oversteer
But when you go to advanced mode, you will see that the simplified gearing is tied and alters final drive, individual gear ratio, etc. Handling setting alters tyre pressure, tyre balance, camber and other suspension settings, etc.
It can be a solution to satisfy both newcomers and advanced players, but won’t satisfy devs in terms of work that has to be done though 
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I can’t not see this in development, because once done, a boxer4 or 6 will also turn around and be the same for the VW beetles and Porsche frogs, with the only real visual change being where the steering box is located.