I wasn't saying that. I'm arguing that:
1. Clubs are more adept at spotting what types of players will succeed and what types wont, and what kind of form matters and what kind doesn't.
2. Clubs are more adept at understanding how to manage players with playing flaws, in order to improve them.
3. Clubs are more adept at preparing that talent so it becomes the player that it promised to be.
4. Clubs have more prepared players for afl football than ever before, and as such have more players to work with, which improves the success rate.
1) I'd argue against that. Cf Melbourne or whoever else, who's had a bucketload of early picks (Richmond 4-5 years ago), amongst a bucketload of list changes overall. If clubs were, as you say, (uniformly) good at spotting & developing players, they should be in a very very good position, but they're not.
2) Depends on the club, the player, the coach. ie there would be a number of players who the Hawks (love those outside skills) would work with, who Lyon (thrives on defensive workrate) wouldn't touch, and vice versa. Some clubs seem to have (Haw, Freo, Rich) an over-arching plan, some clubs (Syd, Ess) seem to be a bit more flexible & take it as it comes.
3 & 4)
Some clubs are very good at extracting that potential, I'd be very hesitant to say all. If it were as linear as that, clubs still heavily built on the 99 & 2001 drafts wouldn't be winning so many games against clubs who had heaps more picks in the last 5 years. Again (and this touches on 4 as well) I'd argue the better U18s systems have just increased the 'baseline' for a lot of guys, and left a little bit less to chance.... it hasn't made a massive difference to the end-point.
Point 4 I agree with so far as it goes, but I'd argue the U18s being better, has possibly driven (or at least used as a justification for) this fad of chopping everyone over 28. Which is often (IMHO) detrimental to development.