I agree for you except for tanking which I personally don't like.
As 35T 5 star team manager, I don't pay real cash. But I need much time, even more than those token buyer/farmers because I must find patiently wait for hours with less competitions in auctions, to buy new players to order to maintain 5 star quality after promoting in every seasons.
I want to rebuild a team to 3 star and then keep this quality from now on. I think 3 star players generally develop more quickly and hopefully have less competition in auction, then I can spend less time on training or buying new players, more time on pure team management. Moreover, I may spend less time as the teams likely eliminated early in CL, and may try to compete in Cup.