Young scout players have their advantages, namely duration of usefulness. I've bought 22 year old scout players, leveled them up to seven or eight stars and had them in my starting eleven for five seasons. The problem with the transfer wire, especially between levels 4-8, is the ridiculous amount of tokens people throw around, sometimes upwards of 50 tokens for one five star. At that rate, but a scout and save yourself the time and effort.
Ye, I've noticed since I've hit lvl 5 money isn't what's important. It's tokens. Even trying to buy a 3 star player usually takes at least about 6 tokens. So scouts start to make sense. but idk buying scouts almost feels like the easy way out. I like training young players. The better youth players in your youth team now to me seem like a good choice.