Yeah I agree with this, I do think there's a tendency to try and flaunt it a bit though and it hardly ever works - especially not now where you've got a lot of big money clubs already there. There simply won't be another Chelsea or Man City, and even with those two, Chelsea were already floating around the top 4 and Manchester City took nearly four years to win the title under their current owners, and that followed a few years of spending relatively big under Shinawatra.
Gradual progress is the one. I've only ever seen one team go from relegation candidates to champions but their name escapes me.