I guess you're too young to remember back in the day George Allen and the Redskins trading away virtually their entire draft almost every year. They were pretty successful at that alternative method of team building. I don't necessarily advocate that or even a modern version of it, but just saying ......
I would argue that the steadily increasing - you say exploding - salary cap makes quality free agent signing more feasible, not less than in Ron Wolf's day. Wolf of course, was way more draft and develop than most GMs - just not nearly to the extent that Ted Thompson was.
The current plight of the Packers is a direct result of Ron AND Ted's flawed way of doing things. It was masked for over two decades by the greatness of Aaron Rodgers and Favre before him, but it caught up with us last season.
What's this stuff doing in a Pettine thread instead of a Gutekunst thread?