I'm not sure you could argue that we overspent in getting to the top division however, once we were there, I believe we signed players up to ridiculous 10yr contracts and obviously spent big to try and stay there. I don't agree that you can't rank the successes because the measure of success...
Jesus, you are thick! Maybe your problem is that you weren't around during the 70s and 80s but that still doesn't change the fact that almost everyone, apart from you, would see playing in the premier league as being more successful than winning League 2.