When you talk about the quality of a team, you are actually looking at the AVERAGE rating of the whole squad. So for every scout you have pushing the average up, it is being dragged down by those 2* players you are hanging on to for no other reason than sentiment.
So, the other manager may be showing an average of 4* but the team that he fields may actually average 5*.
Now here is a question......
Are you better off hanging on to those 2* dead weights to make your average look worse and to lull your opponent in to a false sense of security, or does this lower squad average affect your team's results and therefore you are better off getting rid of the surplus members on your payroll?