Players used to play all year round back in the day as well,, heaps of players when they weren't touring or playing for their country played county cricket.
There is no such thing as the school of hard knocks anymore, if you show talent by the age of 13 you are shoved in a bubble to have smoke blown up your arse 24/7. It's no surprise the blokes that weren't the junior stars or the blokes who did it tough through the grades are the blokes able to go to the next level.
It's not just cricket it's true for most sports and pretty much true of most younger people these days.
I'd suggest this is partly true, and partly rubbish tbh.
I think with so much more awareness of mental health issues there's a lot more support for a guy like Weatherald....maybe a guy like Boonie just bats like shit for a while and sinks piss until he pulls out of it (random comparison, not suggesting an absolute specimen like Boonie had health issues). Maybe Tubby's form slump was because he was struggling upstairs, how would you know? No one understood that shit then.
More awareness and more understanding means more correct diagnoses and more support means there's every chance for a guy like Weatherald, or Pucovski, or whoever can stand up and say "hey, I need a break" without getting called soft and slated for life.
The greatest surprise I ever got in my whole life was sitting down for a beer with my Rugby second rower, mine engineer, lost half his foot to a damned croc in Indonesia grandfather and him telling me he thought he'd had the same "thing" (anxiety) I had and he wished he could have had the systems I did, rather than just sinking longnecks and working harder.
But yes, I also think the old "player of promise" being coddled is a real thing as well.
