enigmatic

Because newgens created at the start of the game are supposed to be "filler" players for teams that have hardly any players. And if teams haven't got many players, it's probably a case of research missing a bunch of non-famous backups or the team having serious financial issues IRL, so it doesn't make sense to add new players that are better than most of the league's stars. It was 115CA in the not too distant past (higher for leagues added after the start date). Was a very weird Premier League when I tried it...

I guess that answers my question of "does height affect shot stopping ability or does a short guy with the right reflexes/agility/anticipation reach the same spots as the tall guy..."

Also think the xG estimation is quite poor at the moment. I've seen some absurdly high scores for direct free kick opportunities, for example.

I think it's also worth remembering that there's two separate questions. There's "does height affect anything in the ME?" to which the answer is a definite yes, and there's "does a defender with a jumping of 14 and a height of 5'11" perform any worse or on average than one with a jumping of 14 and a height of 6'3 to which the answer is not really, (and especially not compared with differences in other attributes like strength or anticipation or agility or concentration) The one thing it really does matter for is that a young high potential centre back with a jumping of 14 and a height of 6'3 will quite possibly end up with a jumping of 16 and the ability to boss opposing target men whereas the 5'11 guy with a jumping of 14 is probably jumping as high as he ever will