I kind of disagree with this philosophy. I think that's part of what got the old regime in trouble. Sometimes it worked out, but we often overpaid guys like Andre Carter, Adam Archuleta, Randle El, and Brandon Lloyd based on what we thought they could do. Contracts tend to get inflated in the FA market so you end up giving a guy a contract that exceeds the value of what he's already accomplished and then hope that guy can outperform the value of that deal. So even a productive guy like Andre Carter came at a pretty penny that's considered a steal if he turns out to be elite, but is likely always a griping point even if the player does what they've always done.
Now I do have to admit that the current regime is making me reconsider because they are consistently getting good performance from those guys like Garcon (so far), Josh Wilson, Cofield, Bowen, Chester. But overall, I think we've set up our roster where we can mostly focus on the draft going forward. So I'd only really want to spend our money on elite talents. We have enough depth that we don't have to go to FA to fill holes, we should only sign a guy if he's a significant upgrade at the position.
That said, the guys I'm looking at next March are Talib and Reggie Bush. I think they both can come for cheap and be special in our systems on offense and defense.
P.S. Old regime also messed up a lot with trades more than FA signings. Jason Taylor and Pete Kendall and even Jason Campbell would've hurt a lot less if we hadn't lost 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rounders. Same thing with this regime getting McNabb and Jammal Brown. The key is to stay away from trading picks. Unless its for RGIII
