I think this is very true. I remember always lamenting that Essendon could take players who were not touted as stars when they were juniors and turn them into stars. Meanwhile Richmond would take early draft picks who were proven performers at their level and develop none or maybe one of them into a star.
Development is hugely important.
My observations have also led me to the opinion that turning around a club in terms of being able to develop players well is damned difficult. You see it every year, some clubs just don't seem to be able to take a great young player and get them to AFL level, and those same clubs spend years, even decades, with the inability to develop players. As a Richmond supporter I know this well as I saw our club do it for so many years. Credit to those who managed to turn this around. Essendon are a great example at present of losing this ability, and I suspect it will take time to turn it around. Melbourne seem to be hopeless at developing players and have been for decades, they need to seriously work out how to change this.
It isn't so much who you draft, important though that is, it is whether you can pick players who are good enough and get them to the next level. As Dimma often says - all the players in the draft can kick, mark, handball, run etc,. The club has to take them to the next level to be good AFL players.
DS