The whole "total usage" idea is and always has been crap. It's all about the tiers, man. At what point do players start having way less possessions than they did IRL (after pace adjustment)? When you get to that point, you're wasting usage. I actually don't mind the individual possession penalty and have found it far more effective to make that happen than to run close to the edge.
There is a HUGE difference between a 1st tier (32.5%+) usage guy and a 2nd tier (27.5%-32.5%) usage guy and a 3rd tier (22.1%-27.5%) usage guy. You can have 4 guys in that 3rd tier and be okay, but you add even one guy from the 2nd tier to that and you'll see wasted possessions. Two second tier guys is pretty close to optimal. One 1st tier guy with a 3rd tier guy is exceptional as well. You can even have 2 1st tier guys, but with a 4th tier guy, a 5th tier guy and the bottom tier guy you'll still be missing out on some possessions.
As I said earlier, I actually like forcing the individual possession penalty to occur. It's really beneficial when you take a guy like Barkley or Dwight Howard who have 3rd tier usages but really high efg% & FTA. You simply make them the highest usage on the team, add in another 3rd tier usage person and the rest have to be 4th or lower. Yeah, Chuck's gonna turn it over a lot now, but he'll be getting way more possessions at a much higher efg% than almost anyone else you can ask for and is an absolute monster getting to the free throw line. But to do that, you have to make sure he's the highest usage guy on the floor, and that eliminates a ton of players. He's still an incredible second option, but that first option has to be a monster FTA machine as well, or you're paying out the *** for stuff from Chuck that you won't get from him. So if he IS your second option, and you have a guy like Pippen as your third, it's going to cut down a lot on his effectiveness. Lord help me if you're not using the 87-88 Chuck, as then Pippen's your second option.
That's why you could do some serious **** with moses/rodman/chuck in the last salary structure, but most people fucked it up by adding Ray Allen & Steve Nash. Lower-usage Reggie Miller season & Jason Kidd was way superior, but I never saw anybody do that except me.