If you want a fair system you need a salary cap. Of course the salary cap has been so badly subverted at this point that it's borderline meaningless, but the point still stands.
The hyper focus on talent pools in the PI's, and NZ to a lesser extent, over the past 20ish years is missing the forest for the trees and badly hurting the game on home soil as well.
In NSW and Qld alone more talent with NRL potential is missed or dropped in a year because of lack of spots in the system than the PI's will produce in five... That's without even getting into the 'affiliated states' which are huge markets where we do basically no junior development.
A salary cap is only one pillar of a fair system. You need another, particularly, as the current system is hardly transparent (biggest problem) and is increasingly nebulous considering the applications of third party payments (additional problem)
You are right. Junior development has been very poor both in the development of Pacific regions and at home. I would state that is because NRL clubs have too much control in such development but people can come to different conclusions on that front.