I don't condone actively tanking (young players need to grow in a competitive environment) but there is a cycle to pro sports. Teams like Detroit and Anaheim were strong for many years, were able to supplement their core with strong drafting despite later picks. But eventually it catches up with you and your top end talent ages out. It's very difficult to truly replenish your top end talent in the NHL without early picks. Most of the better teams were bad for a period of time and gained some of their best players in the process.
Toronto is only competing right now because they finally decided that they needed a young core to build around. Slowed things down for a couple years and stockpiled assets, hit the mark on their early picks (Matthews, Marner, Rielly etc). If you take issue with building a team in that manner I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.