'Sorry' but that is utter f**king nonsense. The most successful clubs in the NRL era (Storm and Roosters) have done it with affiliate clubs, not reserve grades.
Besides developing the best quality talent for a handful of NRL clubs isn't, nor should it be, the sole goal of grassroots and junior footy. Nor should that goal ever come at the expense of what is in the best interests of the health and growth of the sport as a whole.
These sorts of "the NRL is all that matters" attitudes is why RL is dying on it's arse everywhere south of roughly Goulburn, and that creeping death is spreading yearly.
Strawman, and a really lame one at that considering that pseudo reserve grade teams get about that to their games before the NRL anyway.
No their isn't and you damn well know it.
The lower the standard of the talent the harder it is to sell the product, just look at spring leagues in America. Take the best talent outside of the NRL and drop it into a reserve grade and you've just killed the Qld cup, Bears, Jets, etc, and killed any hope for more clubs like them in the future, and you've done it all for absolutely nothing.
You've also killed your best hope of promoting bush footy, which desperately needs it.
I don't care about your anecdotes, and could give you just as many of kids who hated having to leave their teams, clubs, towns, etc, to go and play for an NRL side because it was their only shot.
Anecdotes are meaningless.
You'd absolutely notice it if you took the top 3-4 best players out of any team, and to pretend otherwise is a joke.
Do that, and with the exception of a handful of clubs with rich and willing leagues clubs, the only teams left in the comp would be Sydney based within a decade. In other words the exact opposite of your stated goal.
It's almost as if your stated goal isn't actually your goal and you're just another in a long line Sydney-centric cancers who's ignorance and myopia have f**ked this game for generations...