To lure the top players in, academies went cheap for the older kids and started charging the younger players a small fortune and justified the cost by their facilities and ex pro staff. The 17 year olds paying half the cost start committing and they go up on the wall at the facility. Parents see this and want the same for their kid. They start getting in sooner and the kids start leaving rec to play 10u Elite ball and soon enough academies were pushing out multiple teams per age group and making a ton of money doing it. The goal of the facility is college commitments and getting people to spend money. So if your kid is good but not great the solution isn't to work on xyz, the solution is 2 60 minute private lessons a week.
Find a team where your kid can develop, when he is ready to get put in front of schools that is when you feed the machine. At that point the major development is over and it is just fine tuning. Something the facility will gladly do if it gets his name on the commitment wall.