I agree with you
Many of the truly great players including Ricky Ponting were given a chance in first grade before the age of 20 and performed

But I am sure a younger player does a lot better when he is given the confidence to succeed by being in a successful confident team

The shambles that we all have watched over the last few Ashes series has a few origins

*Loss of a large group of incredible players at almost the same time
-Warne, Langer, Haydn, Brett Lee, and my all time favourite player Gilcrist

*Dodgy foreign coach

*Dodgy rotation policy which most ex Australian cricketers criticised as being counterproductive

*Huge fall out at the top between Michael Clarke and the sacked Katich (the fall out from that lasted many months)

*Huge fall out/disagreement between Michael Clarke and Hussey over how they would celebrate after his last match in Sydney (Clarke wanted to go out on Packers massive yacht, Hussey wanted a humble few beers on land with family and close friends and the Aussie cricketers)

*Huge fall out between Shane Watson and the rest of the team. Much unteamlike behaviour was noted, a lot possibly due to lack of respect for the foreign coach and or the coaching methods

So many seemingly trivial issues all were distractions from keeping things simple
ie back to basics coach (Darren Lehmann), and avoiding the gimmicks including the stupid "homework" tasks