Here is the pp spend for each team in 2012, when Sydney won the premiership:
This was before they found an extra 1 mill for Tippett and a year later even more $$$ for Franklin.
This is another reason why focusing on drafting and keeping a group of elite players together is better than trying to 'buy' a premiership as soon as you can. More than half of Sydney's spend is on their veterans list, half of which is outside the cap anyway. So they can afford to bring in other talented players and still keep their stars, remaining in finals and turning their list over while drafting in more talent to replace their veterans as they retire.
Our problem is, and always has been, the dearth of 26-30 year old talent on our list. We've hardly had any players push to 200 games - P. Burgoyne, Kane and Chad, Lade, Tredrea and Cassisi. Everyone else either left for another club or was cruelled by injury, robbing us of the opportunity to really take advantage of the veterans list.
Wait until Boak, Carlile, Gray, Hartlett, Wingard, Wines, Lobbe, Trengove etc. hit the veteran's list. Imagine being able to add 110k to the salary cap for each one of those players as they turn 28 (10 years of service). You can recruit some nice 26 year old stars with that coin through FA which can smooth the way for your draft picks to come through, and the cycle starts again.