the player would ultimately go for more the further from the draft the sale happened.
In a competitive market (without cheating), the player actually should go for less the further from the draft the sale happened. Most managers have already acquired/fixed their trainees by then, so demand is significantly less. Also, the supply of quality trainees is significantly less, since most of the prospects on the market are those of resellers, who have not bothered to train them well (if at all), so they are behind where they should be. An 18yo with 50 skill points immediately after the draft is significantly more valuable than an 18yo with the same 50 skill points at the all-star break (when he should have at least 55+ if given 48+ single-position weekly). I'm no economist, but lower demand + poorer supply ≠higher prices last I checked.
I would assume if the top team in the world did it 2 out of the last 4 seasons it was legal
The trades have been noticed. Teams like Dionysus (we all know who we're talking about here) have been reported a lot , according to the GMs. But the thing is, technically we can't prove that he's cheating; everything is circumstantial. We can say it is improbable or even statistically impossible, but any smart cheater uses a proxy so the GMs can't catch them based on their IP and doesn't transfer to the same team twice. So he can't be banned under the whole "innocent until
proven guilty" theory, even though I think most users would agree with me when I say that what he's doing appears to be so unrealistic as to be inconceivable under normal circumstances.
I totally agree with your suggestions.
When I see how teams get to the NBBA
Actually, if you check most of the teams in the NBBA, you'll see that they didn't get to the top by reselling. Probably the NBBA's richest team, King Drive Ballers, actually has a negative transfer balance of -$24 million. They made their money over many seasons (some of which had no salary floor). The one team that's an exception is just that-an outlier.