The early season rookie cash grab also means that almost none of the premium midfielders will be more expensive by round 10 than they are to start. Basically they've got to improve about 15 points on their starting average before they'll generate cash. It's simply a function of a fixed size pie that the massively underpriced guys at the bottom eat a disproportionate amount of that means the guys at the top are actually "overpriced" to start with.
Think it's very much a symptom of the immediate gratification society that people struggle to trade in those players. They want it now when the reality is that getting a Macrae into your side is generally going to take 2 weeks of trade plans.
The big change this year is of course the trade boost which I think is going to put a lot of those players much more within reach of a single weeks trades. The simply fact is the one up, one down is built around 500k targets, if you want a 650k target, add an extra down in there
Of course value is one thing but points on the field, captaincy and not needing corrective trades are also extremely valuable and that's what guys like Macrae or Oliver offer to you historically. There is a reason that guns and rookies is historically successful at a way higher level even if logically pure value would make more sense. The problem is that most of the time that a player is "value" it's because of something sinister underlying it, be that durability, unproven roles or the like.