It depends on what level of Signature Skills you equip. I mostly put bronze skills on my bronze players, and they add only 100 to the price -- 300 MT points rather than 200. And the 300 buys you five games, so it's really 60 MT per game, x 12 players; that's 720 MT per game. You can make 5000 MT in half an hour, so that seems like a reasonable investment to me. I also keep a few bronze players with no signature skills at all. Plus, you can buy a bronze pack and get three bronze players, each with 15-game contracts.
I personally enjoy playing bronze players. I can fire up MyGM and play with LeBron or Rondo whenever I like.
My main concern with this patch isn't the contracts. I think those are manageable. My concern is that I now apparently have no chance to earn 3 stars against teams that, for whatever reason, no longer display a 3-star pack for me, even though I never earned 3 stars against them.