Okay, then I think I misunderstood the depot thing;-) I think there is a small bug in the depot management of vehicles which came up with the rule sets. To a certain point in time vehicles were sent and removed from lines just like it was supposed to work. Now the problem is that they often are not send back when not need anymore (e.g. frequency changes from 20 to 10 minutes interval) and when you extend the frequency something goes wrong in the calculation which vehicles is the next, so a scheduled trip is cancellend and then two vehicles go on line. Just a bug, but major concequences. In CS vehicles go to the nearest stop from the depot and start the service in both directions. This is fine when having no schedule. With schedules this would have to work different. As you say it would be nessesary to determine the first stop. With this the schedule system would have to be more complex and flexible. I don't think this would be bad for people who hate micro management as long as there is a good system for "standard schedules", which also work just by one click. I have lost hope that one day some modder intruduces schedules to CS, and possibilities to determine where a vehicle has a pause. This is something which only can be made in a game like CIM. But at some points they leardned from CIM: passengeres are aware in CS if a line is on duty or not, and even special additional lines are possible, as long as they are not longer than the main line. But there are many things despite missing the schedules that I hate in CS. Mainly that everything is much too fast, even with mods. Following a vehicle is no fun at all. I also don't like the fact how stops are set up, I really prefer to first choose the kind of stop I need, place it, and then create the line. My eyes start crying when I see in CS how a small bus stops in the middle of a stop and lets no other vehicle to do the same. Or how articulated busses block the road while stopping... But I like how CS determines the catchment area of a stop, as it is not just a static circle.
So I still prefer CIM2 and try to deal with the bugs. With a lot of trial and error very complex systems are possible until you reach the games max values e.g. for stops or the 32 bit barrier. Also the more serious style of the graphics is something I like and prefer to the comic-like style of CS.
Keep your concept in mind, maybe one day there will be someone who is interessted in when making such a game. Right now I also do not see anyone. I only see that in such games they only care about graphics, sandbox and just a simple functionality which only provides the basics.