[Bluesman]

A few ideas if you haven't tried them yet:

Turn gm firing on/switch teams at the end of your contract

Take an 'identity' team and try and work within that identity, i.e. PIT with crap wingers and deep down the middle/d, etc

Run two teams at once. I'll have a rebuilding team and a prime team that allows me to chase/place players according to that team. You could take one team and build for offense and another for defense, etc.