In answer to my original question, regardless of how bleak footy may look at the moment, and how dominated by money it is, I personally think this will change at some stage in the future.
Not exactly sure when that will be, and what that change will consist of, but hopefully it'll give a club like ours a more level playing field in the future.
The thing is though, I'm not sure how low our profile will have become at that stage, or how far behind we will be.
Where we are in the pecking order at this stage determines how quickly we could challenge for the title, and hopefully win it again.
A lot of that depends on our board, and how much vision and ambition they have between now and then.
For example, given we'd only won the title 6 seasons before the Premier League began, our board didn't cover themselves in glory in the period in between, and this has led to clubs like Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool completely leaving us behind (financially, and also corporately). Man U were actually quite far behind us at the time, in terms of league titles won, but now look at them.
If our board had shown some foresight and ambition back in the early 90s, we could have done what Man U have done since. Or we could and should have at least been included in the Sky big 4, for all these years, instead of being considered by the media as punching above our weight, a selling club, minnows, also rans, plucky Everton, etc etc.
Just think about how different our club would be viewed from the outside now if we were competing in the Champions League on a regular basis, like Arsenal, or having regular title challenges like Chelsea.
I believe we could and should have been competing in this category, if our board weren't so inept back in the late 80s/early 90s (and obviously still are now).