It isn't that we've lost the plot. It's that Fergie had a somewhat socialist view point where he did not believe that the most highly paid member of the squad should be remunerated several times more than another player who also helped us win trophies. You will be aware of problems that this caused in the past with our most highly paid players who felt they weren't getting a market rate (Keane, Ferdinand) and likewise you see the awful transfer fee's we get from our squad players due to their massive salaries (Brown, Evans, O'Shea, Park and inevitably several players in our current squad).
To totally rework this ideology could take a decade or more, as every squad player coming in is going to want the equivalent to a similar player in the squad. If Young is coming in he's always going to demand at least parity with Nani. If Fellaini is coming in he's likely to demand parity with Young. If Shaw is coming in he's going to demand parity with Fellaini. If Schneiderlin is coming in he's likely to demand parity with Shaw. You end up with a situation where you have a mini financial ecosystem where players aren't looking at their market value or what they'd be on at other clubs, they are looking at a similar player in our squad (who's overpaid) and demanding parity.
You say "I highly doubt those players would have rejected lesser salaries", but unfortunately this doesn't take into consideration the fact that our manager will be putting pressure on the board to get signings tied up. They will be putting pressure on the board to ensure signings have a pre-season with us and if you read the transfer forum on here you can see why an extra £20k a week isn't a huge deciding factor in our preparations for the upcoming season. Players' agents know this and will be happy to drag negotiations out for a couple of weeks, knowing we can more than afford another £20-40k a week and knowing they have the leverage of other players' salaries.
I was referring to Bayern who would have several players' knocking on the door demanding an uplift if Sanchez came in on £200k per week. However even at Arsenal you're likely to get several players demanding an uplift. I'm not saying the likes of Cech, Koscielny, Ramsey, Walcott, Cazorla, Coquelin etc will all demand parity. But their agents will certainly use them in negotiations and I'm sure demand uplift in % terms - they've had a 40% increase in salary, my client wants a 40% on his £70k salary.
Again they might not get it, but there's a reason the majority of clubs have a strict structure. Spurs refuse to go higher than £100k a week as they know it'll set a precedent. Bayern & Arsenal likewise refuse to go above £150k, not because they can't easily afford an extra £3m for one player, but because very quickly it'll translate to a 25% increase in their wage bill.
They'll eventually have to increase their wage structure, but they'll do it reluctantly and might even lose a couple of good players in the process. Likewise they may be calling the players' bluff - "There's only 6 clubs in the world that can pay more than we're offering, 3 of them don't need you and the other 3 we aren't selling to regardless of the offer. You either sign the current deal at £2m more per season or wait 2 years until your contract is up, losing out on the £4m pay rise in the process and risk a dip in form or a bad injury away from no club being in for you at anything near the current offer".
Bitter before we've even been linked with him.