i am late to this conversation, and i wish to apologize if my thoughts have already been stated.
i think this is a remarkable game, extraordinarily well thought out. but that also means it is very complex and actually more than a bit forbidding to new players. keeping those new players who try this game seems to me be key to getting growth back into this game.
what if certain elements of the game, in particular training, were modified so that progress was faster at the lower levels? for example, i could imagine fixing the GE so that a DV team would pretty much be guaranteed a pop a week (or faster!) in whatever was trained that week for any young player. this would serve a dual, or even multiple purposes:
-- coaches would see immediate improvement and positive feedback for active management
-- teams would improve more rapidly
-- the talent pool for all managers would increase more quickly, perhaps reducing the current problems with the TL
-- managers would be able to train and sell players as a viable option for building a team
i could see a training regimen, for example, that is 120% faster for DV, 115% for DIV, 110% for DIII, 105% for DII, and "normal" for the top level. just for purposes of illustration.
i could see training, and perhaps other elements (say, injuries) becoming more challenging as a given manager worked his way up the food chain. for injuries, perhaps the DV teams would been more or less immune from injuries, which could be graduated in severity to our current standard for the top level teams. maybe trainers / doctors / pr guys could be discounted for level, as well.
i'm not a programming guy, but it seems to me that tweaking the GE to favor newer, lower-level teams and managers is doable and could pay dividends for the upper-level managers and the game in general.