It's interesting to compare two teams with similar draft restrictions over the same period. Oakland, for example, was always lauded for their drafting and development, but over the same stretch that JPR was here they didn't outperform him at the draft. If you look at likely 5+ win careers (I think this is all of them):
Lind, Cecil, Hill, Marcum, Janssen, Marisnick, Goins, Paxton, Loup, Gomes, Hutchison
Swisher, Ziegler, Street, Suzuki, Cahill, Doolittle, Ross, Pennington
It was really, really hard to hit on impact talent under the old draft bonus structure if you couldn't go overslot.