I disagree, we've had players pinched by Man U, Man City and now Chelsea in recent years. We're doing something right but the way Cat 1 teams can pillage lower division young players is ridiculous. At some point, the club will need to obtain Cat 1 status ourselves which (at a guess) won't be looked at until our facilities are upgraded and we're in the Prem.
Our last 'batch' of young players were developed when we a Championship team (Christie, Clarke, Wilson and Maddison) and the players that came through in L2 would've been mostly signed to the academy before relegation to L1. Therefore, we've arguably 'lost' a generation of academy players as the club cut back on investment (Overson more or less funding the academy iirc) in the L1 and L2 days. Despite all this, we've produced talent pinched by our top clubs and at various points have had several academy players get Championship minutes.
We've got some catching up to do and when we've risen so rapidly in 5-6 years, it's too short term to produce the academy talent.