I just don't think there's a choice, though - if you're not developing your own talent you're dead in the water anyway, because you'll never be able to find enough genuine bargains on the free agent market to put together a strong, deep roster (hello the Bulldogs and Titans).
We always focus on who we're signing but the Tigers' fundamental problem for the past decade has been that it hasn't brought through any meaningful talent. Seriously, have a look at the list of club debutants:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wests_Tigers_players There's not a single name you'd call a high-level talent between Moses in 2014 and Bula in 2023 apart from Addo-Carr, and we didn't manage to keep him.
That's shameful. In the same period Souths debuted Api Koroisau, Cam McInnes, Alex Johnston, Damien Cook, Angus Crichton, Cam Murray, Campbell Graham, Keaon Koloamatangi
, Lachlan Ilias and plenty of others - I'm not even bothering to name the likes of Corey Allan, Tevita Tatola and others who were decent contributors.
It seems to me that there are three factors at play. One is that the talent simply hasn't been there. We seem to be resolving this now, at least based on how many players 1-3 years out we are talking about in relatively excited terms. The second is that we don't keep those players - they go elsewhere before or just after reaching first grade level, eg Papenheuysen and Addo-Carr. That seems to be improving, too, at least if the Bula extension is anything to go by.
The third problem, and the one I'm most worried about, is that we don't turn good talent into first-grade output. I honestly don't know if Liddle or Talau or Marsters or any of those ever had it in them to be as good as we thought they might - but they sure as hell didn't reach what we thought their potential might have been at the Tigers.