everything screams 'stay the course' with their current playing group, but it would be a huge mistake.
I'd like to dismiss this opinion out of hand, but given your close up experience with playing group disasters as a Richmond fan, I can't help but sit up and take notice. I understand you'd be pessimistic, given the number of times Richmond fans have been convinced to 'stay the course' only to find the GPS was broken and had set a path directly off the nearest cliff. But this is Hawthorn, not Richmond.
Given their age, we are likely to get bugger all for Hodge, Gibbo and Mitchell at the trade table. Players in that age bracket very rarely have any currency, no matter how good they are. They are taking unders to allow us to make plays for O'Meara and Tom Mitchell, which means they are worth a lot more to us on our list than they are as trade bait. Clarko tried 7 debutantes this year. A brilliant move , as we now have a bunch of extra players with AFL games under their belt, which adds considerably to their trade value when we start arranging deals to get in our next wave of elite mids.
The players you mention have just given us three flags, and deserve some reciprocal loyalty from the club. Based on the fact they've received contracts for next year, it seems they are receiving it. You don't build the fabric of a successful club by shitting on your most loyal servants. Someone might have to go to get Mitchell and O'Meara, but it will not be any of the players you've mentioned.
There is clearly a plan in process. Lake and Hale were nudged last year. We tried a lot of inexperienced players this year. The next stage is to get two new mids in to replace half of the soon-to-be retirees. Next, we'll likely see two of the older mids retire at the end of next year, and then we'll need to get another two incoming mids in the year after, either from those on the list already, or from draft or trade. Outside of our aging mids, the rest of group has a younger age profile, so our mids+Gibson are the immediate priority.
The main risk is that 2 years to retire the current bunch is too long. It requires probably Mitchell and one other of Lewis, Hodge and Burgoyne to go 2 more years, which might be a year too long (Mitchell can go 2 more I think, not sure about everyone else). There is also a big risk with O'Meara. Has the potential to be one of the best mids in the competition if he is truly right to go, but I have my doubts. Less risk with Tom Mitchell, and while he is no Sam Mitchell, he does provide raw ball winning ability at the coal face, which we need to address going into next season.
I'd be surprised if we can't play finals again next year (certainly I think Hawks for top 8 is a much safer bet than Tigers), and if the mini rebuild that clearly started at the end of last year works well, I think we could still be hoping for top 4 next year, and maybe even the year afterwards. As with any year, top 4 requires a few things to go right for most teams, and we are certainly no longer a team that can just expect it to happen just based on talent alone. Would expect us to need above average luck with injuries to make another prelim, and doubtful anyone is going to be able to go with GWS over the next few years anyway. From that point of view, you might be right in terms of this being a good time to give up on finals for a few years to accelerate the rebuild, but rebuild on the fly clubs have done ok in recent years (we did it ourselves after 2009's down year), and it is a much less painful path for supporters (and helps maintain the 'destination club' status which has been very handy for us over the years).