Cool post, OP. Thanks for quoting one of my posts in it. The kid could shoot the puck like Mike Bossy and do nothing else. Hockey scouting was such a different animal back then. People relied heavily upon urban legend and hearsay and most of the European players were ridiculously underscouted unless they came to North America in their draft season. Patrik Stefan did this and suffered 3 concussions basically playing in the AHL equivalent of today as a 16-17 year old player. This was a time in hockey history where concussions were also injuries that most players didn't even leave the game upon suffering unless they went out cold and even then it was 50/50. Kariya in the '03 Finals comes to mind. It was an underrated aspect of why Stefan failed as a prospect.
Now, every level of hockey around the world is pretty integrated. The internet opened a path for broader communication and the training habits that were most successful were almost universally adopted by countries that wanted to stay competitive. Certain types of players, like players with extremely poor work ethic, are identified early. Most Junior coaches now are guys that are well-connected, respected, and are forward minded enough to give scouts the real deal about their players without fear of reprisal. In some ways, the hockey world has gotten smaller in that respect. Back in this time, the impression was that most hockey executives were in business for themselves and weren't concerned with anything but winning games and utilized players like Brendl to achieve that goal. Back then, the jump from the CHL to the NHL was massive because everything changed. The stars that were allowed free reign now had to play inside a system and not everyone adjusted. It used to be that a player's D+1 season if he was promoted to the NHL was usually considered a lost season from a production standpoint. 18 year old players were never given the keys the way they are now. Joe Thornton skated his entire first season on the 4th line for the Bruins despite being the 1st overall pick.
In that sense, we rarely see players like Pavel Brendl go in the Top 5 anymore. Guys who get listed for character concerns usually drop precipitously because of how publicized those events are now. I think this has made the draft a more accurate representation of who the real players are and why we see such a lower percentage in bust rate for guys taken in the Top 5 picks. In a way, Pavel Brendl was a posterboy for that change in philosophy.