My theory by keeping Lawrie has nothing to do with building a team around him. It has everything to do with Lawrie being young, cheap and heading towards his prime opposed to leaving his prime.
When you have expensive players on the tail end of or leaving their prime, they bog down the finances of having a financially flexible team, the player is not getting better production wise and is getting worse and he's a less desirable asset.
The problem is most fans get attached to players, even if a player once was great and is now a shell of their former self and costs a fortune. For some reason the majority of fans still love that player, because they know the player and are comfortable. Its a losing mentality if that's the mentality you have.