Bizkit, you definitely have had plenty of gripes about the bad calls you think the coach has made.
However, what would our team look like now if every call you made over the years was right. Lower, Michie, Sylvia would have to be in there. Neale and Sutcliffe on the other hand would have had too many chances, in the same way Sheridan and Taberner are having now. I suspect that you'll say those players you were backing were the right calls at the time.
St Kilda made some costly decisions in the latter part of the Grant Thomas coaching tenure with regard to trading away high draft picks, and had some bad luck with existing high draft picks constantly injured (X Clarke, McGuire).
Amongst some other dubious trades (How did Heath Black get back to play his best football for Fremantle for instance) try looking up the names Fergus Watts (son of the St Kilda CEO at the time) and King Island legend Barry Brooks. Peake I would suggest got games because Andrew Lovett was traded for a 1st round pick, then delisted.
There's no gaurantee a team after appearing once in finals will play repeat finals. Fremantle and Richmond supporters would know that. One of the difficulties both coaches faced after 2010, is that the squad of that year that finished 6th included players such as Tarrant, Morabito, Hayden and Haselby/Headland who never came back, and arguably, haven't been replaced by players of similar talent.
What we could be seeing with Port Adelaide in 2015 is that expectations are often too high, similar to other pre-season premiership favourites in the past. ( West Coast 2013, Western Bulldogs 2011, Hawthorn 2009, Fremantle 2007 - all missed the Final 8.) We were convincinly beaten by Geelong in the 2010 finals, so I'd modify the optimism of where you think we were at the end of 2010 with the reality of 2011 - and then an improved ladder result in 2012 season with similar amount of injuries to 2011.
Referring to a point that has been talked about earlier in the thread re: selection vs Brisbane, and that is that young players can make an impact in finals in their first season if they're given a crack at it. Would have thought Ross would have an understanding of that, given how he's often quoting examples from history, but he's too methodically conservative to risk it.