Yeah...my thing is every year there are dozens of good to elite quality type players that fall through the cracks. The big dawgs have been identified a long time ago, and all the big schools are going after them.
Imo..a school with great resources in man hours and material, and good evaluators, can supply an elite supply of talent by investing in going after the unidentified gems. It won't look great on signing day, but it will on game days.
I know you can't recruit out of the 20s and compete for champs consistently...like you say the stats prove that out, but I think it has also been proven that the way Clemson has done it till just recently will also work.
You do not have to have top 5s to win. You have to recruit top 20 or better, with above average evaluation, and develop the hell out of them, and then you can net more of the ready to go elite talent.
This will have to be our path. We are not going to recruit top 5 for awhile...just too much damage has been done over the years.