@Titans Bastard - as usual, kick ass series of posts.
However, I want to return to something
@Vinho Tinto said at the outset of this tangent - creating La Masia isn't cheap, or easy.
I gather - please correct me if I'm wrong - the first iteration of USA Soccer's attempt to get "development right" was Bradenton, and a country-wide training academy that would populate the needs of all the USA teams.
And that failed, either because of the wrong people in charge, the wrong mission goals OR another factor that still exists now that the development has been shifted to team academies.
At La Masia, the end goal is playing for the greatest, and most successful club in the world. The unquestioned leader of the pack.
The end goal at the Sporting KC academy is to play for Sporting KC - generously, maybe one of the top 500 clubs in the world. The ambition, and goal, is not the same.
Ultimately, this is why development is still failing and will continue to fail. Every minor league baseball player - even the ones playing for bad organizations - knows that the club's ladder leads to one of the top 30 baseball clubs in the world. This is a (small) factor in why the NFL's developmental leagues have crashed and burned - there's legit question about whether 'tis better to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars or the Alabama Crimson Tide. There's some lifetime benefits to having been part of the Crimson Tide (or THE Ohio State Buckeyes) that while not equal to an NFL pension, are arguably on par with some of the benefits of having been a Jaguar. And DEFINITELY outweigh being a developmental-roster player for the London Monarchs, a minor league affiliate of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Ultimately, any academy products for MLS teams will be still be far off the the ladder to the truly "elite" teams. This is why "we" fans are more psyched by the emergence of a Julian Green (BAYERN!!) or Christian Pulisic (DORTMUND!!!) than we are about the emergence (and development) of Jordan Morris (Stanford! Seattle!) or even DeAndre Yedlin (University of Akron! Seattle! Spurs ... wait, no Sunderland!!!)
Part of a development academy is to provide a player with the best opportunity possible to "make it big" in the sport. This is why La Masia is the peak of the mountain, and why it is impossible to copy. Their ultimate reward is to pull on the shirt of the best club in the world. That does not, cannot, exist in a league that can rival the reputation of the English Championship or the Eredivisie - it is a lower rung on the ladder, and almost always (in our lifetimes) will be.
So, to answer Vinho - I don't think the USA is capable of opening and operating academies that can "compete" with even the likes of Porto or Benefica. That the players who come up through the ranks of US/MLS academies will see the "jump" to another development ladder - like Porto's - as a step up for their prospects and career. There's no chance of that changing in the next 50 years. So I can understand why prospects who get offers abroad will continue to choose those ladders over the MLS-provided ladders.
Now, that doesn't mean MLS should stop trying. Or that the effort is wasted. But it does mean that there's no chance of USA Soccer "copying" La Masia. Because they cannot possibly offer the same goals and benefits to the prospects.
I guess I'll end with an Ed McMahon quote: "Keep on reaching for the stars!" Development, as TB says is getting better all the time. It just won't get to where it needs to be for a very long time yet, because the infrastructure and reputation stuff is a really big hurdle.