I agree the portal shouldn't be the primary focus of a healthy program's recruiting, but I don't follow necessarily the reasoning in your QP. It assumes way too much and gives way too much credit to the coaches/team an athlete comes from.
Just of the top of my head, you are assuming: (1) the athlete failed at his prior school (plenty, like KJ, are looking to come up for draft purposes); (2) he was given a fair chance to succeed; (3) his coach(es) properly evaluated him relative to his peers; (4) he had opportunities to succeed; (5) his coach(es) got the most they could from him; (6) he has reached his maximum level of development; and (7) there wasn't some other factor that impeded the athlete's success. The truth is, coaches sometimes make mistakes, coaches sometimes misevaluate their own players, coaches don't always place their athletes in the best position to succeed, programs don't always do a great job developing their athletes, some athletes take longer to develop or for the light to turn on, and sometimes a change of scenery can really motivate someone to improve.
I agree that the portal should still be secondary to HS recruiting at a healthy program, but I also think the portal isn't going away and has become a significant/important part of recruiting.
