Regardless, if we had to trade to get the discovery rights and match the pay DC was offering, we would be complaining that we pay too much for players that haven't proved themselves.
My complaint is not and would not be that the team overpays to sign players who have not proved themselves. My complaint is the team does not sign players who have proved themselves, full stop. The last time we signed a proven player who was a clear upgrade was 4 years ago when we signed Kaku.
Look at the roster now. I do not think a single guy on the roster could be defined as a "proven player" (taken mean proven to be better than the average MLS player) at the time he was signed by RBNY. Some are proven players now (Long and Coronel for example) but none were when they were signed by the team.