Think it's just the reality of football.
When you are down you have to spend more money on lesser players because that's the only way you get people in to build your list.
It's the degree you overpay and then you need to have people at your club who go "nop, price too high."
The only one I think we overplayed is Yarran. Grigg and Holui were promised game time, they are the list builders you want. You never make your list off the back of free agents, you draft your core, build a list and then add the pieces that are hard to get like key forwards or gun onballers. Williams and Martin were neither.
Two rules of list building that never steer you wrong;
1) Flankers don't become mids
2) Don't overpay B graders at other clubs and expect them to become A graders at yours.