You definitely can recruit for durability with medical history, injury history, general make up and then all the sport science things like BMI, muscle mass and plenty of the tests done at the combine to determine bodies that would hold up well to the rigours of AFL footy. The 2014 draft is a great example of this, why did St Kilda pick Mccartin no.1 with his previous health issues over Petracca? It's something they do in the NFL a lot and without knowing too much about the Eagles situation it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for a team like Melbourne to build their list with priority on strong bodied midfielders who can hold up to the physical side of the game week in week out while another team focuses on the finesse and flash but looks past the fact that they sat out half their Under 17 or 18 year with a knee injury or number of soft tissue injuries. There has to be a reason why so many top 15 picks each year seem to fall to the 2nd and 3rd round where the Eagles pounce. There' no right or wrong way to go about it and they won a flag doing so but I doubt that every club approaches the draft in the same way.
The thing is it's never just the older players, every year West Coast's injury list is always perfectly balanced between the old, the mid range and the young. The number of under 24 y.o's they have there with less than 50 games experience is quite alarming.
What evidence that they value flashy talent? You don't think the likes of Ryan, Petruccelle, Jetta, Rioli in their flag year were flashy? Trading the farm for Tim Kelly? Choosing the flashier Natinui over Watts? Mcgovern, getting Petrevski-Seton in etc There's plenty of evidence that they like the flashy players Sydney_Demon and it's one of the reasons they were always good to watch. It's a little naive to put these things totally down to bad luck and bad management especially when we have next to no idea how they work internally but it's never just 1 or 2 things. I think their recruiting should be closely examined as well.
I'm not sure who you're responding to in regards to the Eagles tanking, I didn't say anything about that.