I don't disagree with anything you wrote as well. I'm fine with playing the transfer game, and relying on it too much causes issues, because many transfers are "flighty" by nature, have had issues elsewhere, and are more likely in my view to jump at the first sign of adversity or because of a better option. And I'm not absolving Mullin one bit - as HC everything falls on him. But there has been sentiment expressed many places that Matt wanted to run recruiting and be viewed as the one responsible for bringing players to SJU. Assistant coaches have to work and play nice together when it comes to recruiting and if, as some speculate, Matt was a big driver of the Slice-divide and breakup, some of that falls on him. Because we never replaced that role with a capable second recruiter. It's all speculation and water under the bridge at this point anyway because we'll never know the reason behind the Slice issue, not hiring another recruiter in his place, etc.
I don't disagree with anything you mentioned but have to roll the dice until you can build consistent winning culture. We haven't stuck with a coach for more than 4 years in the past 20 years nor have we won.
In today's game the transfer method is a solid strategy however I think once we achieved scholarship balance we should have relied on it less and really invested efforts into high school seniors. We were too transient in culture but this also could have been prevented by adding another coach in Richmond's spot ala Rice.