Can someone give me a quick down and dirty on what the difference is between talent stars and rating stars?
Talent is the player's potential. It determines the caps for non-fitness trainable skills and it determines how many rating stars can be attained. Talent stars do not change.
Rating is how good the player is at the position now. The rating for each position will increase with playing time. The more rating stars a player has at any position, the better the player will play at that position.