I've never had good regens, but I always play LLM.
But to say top clubs always produce their own players isn't true.
Some of the greatest players ever have come from tiny tiny obscure clubs; and THIS isn't realistically implemented into the game. Outside of Africa, you'll almost never find a potential continental class regen from an "obscure" club worth less than 500k US dollars.
Not quite; a lot of the players your youth academy get come from tiny clubs. What happens is that they get found by your youth academy and then come to your club.