Ok, I'm going to just interject here. I actually agree with w_alloy here, even though I've disagreed with many of his points in the past. Furthermore, I think you're being a little harsh by writing him off as a troll, even if his last comment did come across as rather snobby. Even though a lot of his opinions are kind of on the extremes, he is usually very good at having well thought out responses and reasons for his arguments, which is a lot more than you can say for 90% of the people who post in these forums.
Let me explain why I agree with him on the case of John Runyon. Runyon is listed as a center, with low JS/JR and extremely low OD. His passing was ok and I forget what his handling/driving were, but neither of them were particularly great. His inside skills were very good for a future guard, as you might expect from a center. So you might think, as I thought for a while, this guy is a steal. I can train up his outside skills, and then I'll have a guard with great inside skills. Great deal, right?
Here's the thing though. OD can be trained up, but let's look at the difference between a player who started out with 1 OD, vs the guy who started with 6 or 7 OD. It will take you probably 8+ weeks of training as an 18yo to make up the difference, or over half a season. That's a lot of primaries to make up, so even though he has great secondaries it's unlikely that he'll ever be as good as the player who started with better primaries and worse secondaries. By training such a player hard for several seasons, you can still turn them into good players, but it's not cost efficient. If you had trained a player with better primaries, you could have sold him for more, or sold him earlier for a better price. So the opportunity cost of the training spot is often higher with these short centers/tall guards.
Do I think that these types of players are bad? Of course not. I love those sort of players, have drafted and trained one, and every draft I look for another one. But if their primaries are truly bad, then it really doesn't matter how good their secondaries are; it's not going to be cost-effective to train them to their full potential.
In this specific case, to get Runyon to the level of a typical guard, you'll have to put in probably an extra 1-2 seasons of training, which is time you could spend training your next trainee to sell. That's why I feel it's not worth it, given that his outside skills are so low. You might not agree, but do you at least see what I'm saying?
(If not, then I'll try to rephrase my argument when I'm not practically falling asleep at my computer).