liner - I am with you on this post.
Son trained this winter with the very expensive option; will return to OBA for last summer and then will be gone. Have witnessed some very strong OBA Bantam teams that have been completely 'gutted' in the 16U year by PBLO's like the situation you describe.
I dont see an option if one is to progress with baseball. If you are a pitcher in a canibalized league, you might as well be throwing at cardboard signs. You are right in saying that the ECPL is less money. The scope of the program is also a lot less though (not necessarily a bad thing). Top end PBLO programs are intended to make longer trips and play competitively with teams much further south. That costs money. We have trained and played with four ECPL teams and one PBLO. Our training facility is second to none. I dont mean that it is overly fancy-smancy - I mean that it is well-designed from an industrial engineering standpoint. There's no way a team can put as many pitchers through in front of as many qualified pitching coaches as this place. This is a long term process and I would hazard it's designed fairly close to a D1 program.
I have witnessed in every program players that might not be elite... might not even project. I think though that it becomes obvious pretty soon. By 17U and 18U the kids drop out. Right now I can see guys that simply cannot hit; they pitch and every batter hits them; they are told there is no way they can play the position they think they can.
I dont know how the OBA would handle the selection process, particulalrly with the affiliates. They would certainly need to enlist the kind of coaches that exist in the PBLO and ECPL. It is doubtful that the OBA could create programs that would compete at the highest levels of the PBLO. The politics of those teams would be an absolute circus, particularly when you throw in the politics of the affiliates themselves.
Lastly, I would say that people that work within the PBLO and ECPL do not appear to be getting all that rich. When his playing days are done, I'm not encouraging my kid to get into the business, other than as a hobby. I wonder though whether some of the programs are 'overkill'. Do you really need to be in front of 20 universities if you are really only interested in a few of them at that point?
Maybe blow up and rebuild is the option.