Good points. I have no idea whether these signings will be successful or not but what I was hoping for from KT's rhetoric was that the recruitment process as a whole would be improved. If it's true that the club haven't found any sort of data analyst yet then it looks to me like that a lot of the talk of a change of process was hot air. From what I've seen all that's changed is a new Head of Recruitment (who we've employed before) and the odd bit of input from Graham Carr - hardly the revolution we were promised.
You make a good point that Watson's purple patch may well have been down to Brady's coaching and capacity to improve a player rather than innate ability. I would say that Brady also improved Horsfall, L. Jones and Marshall amongst others. (It's a shame we've lost Jones because I think unlike Watson he had the potential to develop into a saleable asset like Goode. Still, the improvement in Horsfall was dramatic and I think he could have a very good year in L2 with the right partner alongside him.) Perhaps we should look on these new signings as 'rough diamonds' that Brady can shape and develop.
In the surprise signing of Lewis it appears that Richards and Calderwood may have had an input. To me a committee type signing is more practical and this (signing) might be an example as such.