Tommy, you should check out the theme league circuit. It sounds like every one of your gripes will be solved by default there. Almost all themes have no clones by default, and most of them limit the player pool enough that it's impossible to build a team with the guys you see dominating the open leagues. I highly recommend the two premiere draft leagues, the ODL & the $52m draft league. You'll learn more in one season there if you pay attention / ask questions than years of banging your head against the wall in other leagues.
re: your opinion - it's not really *that* far off. There's just more to it than grabbing random seasons of guys you see a lot. One of the biggest things you have to remember in this sim is that player names don't mean ****; every individual season is uniquely unique. 66-67 Wilt, for example, is absolutely nothing like 61-62 Wilt. While many players do have the same characteristics that make their determining numbers somewhat consistent throughout the years (Steph Curry from 13-14 on; Dennis Rodman from 88-89 on; Shaq's entire career almost, Stockton from 87-88 through the early 2ks, etc), you have to separate the label on the player from the data that makes the player perform the way they do. Even Stockton's 87-88 & 94-95 are drastically different, though they are typically the picks for the State Farm back court. You don't see 05-06 Lebron on those teams for a similar reason.
There are, of course, exceptions to this. In progs you draft a player and keep him until he either retires or you trade/cut him. In the Savage contest, you draft a dude and use five seasons of him, so you typically draft a guy who has five seasons that are somewhat consistent (exceptions to this exception do occur, quite frequently once you get past the first couple of rounds).
Try some theme leagues, man. They are exponentially more interesting once you get your footing.
2/26/2021 4:34 PM (edited)