With regards to recruitment areas, yes ours is dire. Because of the insane way junior rugby is organised (nothing has changed since I started to play some 50 years ago) - using county lines, we will always gets the scraps. Leicester get Leicestershire, Northampton get Northamptonshire, Worcester get Worcestershire. The contentious areas are South Warwickshire, a huge hunting ground for talent, the West Midlands (excluding Coventry) and Staffordshire (Worcester got handed all of these, not sure if Sale got some of Staffs) and Derbyshire (Tigers got this).
Arguably Wasps should have South Warwickshire, more of the West Midlands, some of Derbyshire and a lot of Staffordshire. What we should be hoping for is that Worcester get relegated and don't bounce back up. Then maybe we would get a better share of what is out there.
But, what happens if Coventry Rugby Club manage to get promoted, which is what they are currently angling for?
With regard to our squad size and academy, other than Bristol, we are a long way off where we need to be with homegrown talent in our own squad, but it IS improving, and what we have is quality. I think it will be another two to three seasons before we start to get to where we need to be.