I apologise if I seem confrontational, but that was quite a condescending response, especially from a BB (if you are a BB).
You, yourself, have made clever decisions on the TL and I highly doubt that you really believe that it isn't the TL that has allowed the successful players to get where they are, more so than the strategic basketball decisions they have made.
Here is one example of some smart TL play: (10596465) - bought for $51k on 12/24/2009 and sold for $600k on 3/1/2010. How many weeks is that? Or should we count it in days? That is almost $550k profit in trades for one player in a bit over 2 months.
How about we count it in seasons? I bought a 19yr old, trained him for 2/3's of a whole season, and sold him at the end when he no longer fit in with my team. And at the time I bought him, I was also in division V, and he was good enough to be a key player on my team all season long.
I realize you are trying to point out some kind of hypocrisy, I just don't understand why? My very first sentence to you was "
I admit I can see your point about the value of TL poaching as a way to build money, but..."
I apologize if I seemed condescending, that wasn't my intention. I'm not a BB, just a regular manager like yourself. I just disagree with your view on the TL. IMO, trading is one of several ways to manage finances, financial management is important but still only one of several aspects of team management, and team management is only one component of winning individual games.
My only point was that there are in fact lots of strategic aspects to this game, so don't let yourself focus too much on the TL, especially if you don't enjoy that aspect of the game.