The Star palyer, the idea is great but they don't give any real plus and market in low - low mid level players is all over the place. I also recive 2 players from the same positions, so not even for reserv one of them is ok.
About the cup, removing BOTs fast is also a way to improve small coutries. The cup is simples, 50.000 or 0 money. Every time a bot pass you remove money from players. And is just a fair choise you have the best rank teams paly against then. Not only for those teams but also for competition in general. If you want to have a seed system or not is ok, i just talking about BOTs now. BOT vs player should be first than player vs player.
In Infra is just a way to have more teams training better players fast, also help the market in every aspect. In Hattrick for an example.
On my first week i can easy have 84% efficiency (no forcing to get 100%, but if i want i could reach, in a decent way)
The end of my first season, i can be on 100%.
BuzzerBeater well, I need a decent RNG, to find a level 4+ coach. (5+ with week reajust, is almost impossible and Max coach is a no go zone).Plus Infr, Plus other coach.
Small nations suffer a lot from that, a player that can help a NT will take a long time be able to help. Also you lost a lot of lv 9+ players because of low training speed.