So, to recap...
We have salary updates every 3 months. If you've got a theme team (or an OL team minus AAA, as I had in the above example) in an 80M or 100M or whatever cap league, chances are by the time that team is eligible for the TOC it will have had its salary bumped to just over 80M or 100M or whatever. So instead of, say, a 79.9M team in an 80M TOC, you've got an 80.7M team in a 90M TOC.
The only apparent way to avoid this fate is if your team begins play shortly after a salary update, and you manage to qualify for the TOC before the next update hits. (Well, there's one other way to avoid this fate -- if your team's salary doesn't go up. But in my experience at least all my teams have gone up a bit.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the salary updates themselves -- I love them. But it seems to me if you drafted a 79.9M team, it's not your fault that two months later the team's been "reappraised" as an 80.7M team. Is there any good reason why salaries couldn't be "frozen" once a team has started play in an OL or theme league?