I don’t know about the “rally purist” tag myself - have not played nearly enough of it to confirm that. There’s decidedly more knowledgeable and skilled folk around here who could maybe.
I’ve found the bits of WRC 9 and 10 gameplay that I have had to perhaps be a little more console-leaning than true sim styled. Certainly not arcade-ish though. There is definite sim elements there, just focussed on being run on a console first.
(Maybe that’s part of the reason why they didn’t do pre-orders or list any prices for the PC version of Generations - trying to get more people to opt for a console version over a PC version? Guess we’ll see when they open the Steam and Epic store pages later today.)
As the official game of the WRC it obviously does accurately reflect the events, locations, cars, branding, teams, and drivers of the real WRC season. So I guess you could say it’s purer from that perspective.