Only in the chronological sense. But if the Wings don't do some pretty specific things, there won't be another wave of Datsyuks and Zetterbergs. They'll be, well... Larkins, Manthas, and Athanasious, and we saw where that gets you. We can't just assume that great players will somehow just make their way to Detroit. Management has to do concrete things to put them there.
I don't see how signing a bunch of aging veterans enters into that. I'm also skeptical of the idea that you can develop somebody into a star that normally wouldn't be a star.
It's pretty early to jump to conclusions and again, I'd point back at where both Datsyuk and Zetterberg started from. There's also the possibility of them becoming very good players but not what we need or tradeable pieces for what we need more in the future. I don't see anything that would shut the door on significant moves. The only hold-up is whether you have something to bargain with to land a significant piece? Something along the lines of Coffey and Primeau for Shanahan back in the days.
When it comes to veteran players, well, it depends on who that Veteran is. I would never, for instance want an Alexei Kovalev to be the mentor on the team. He was always an individual player. There's a need for these kinds of players on your roster but, I personally think he'd make a bad leader, mentor, guide...
As I'm getting older myself, I realize more and more on how stupid most late-teenage, early adulthood people are. They roll their eyes at the advice of adults as a result of not understanding the fact that those adults have actually lived that age and they know all about it through actual experience. However, I also think it's a matter of integrity. In other words, the player actually does what he preaches. In this sense, I think the respect is developed and more likely a young player is to listen to the advice of the older one. Kind of like in school. We can point to statistics etc... I tend to think that the teachers that are there to teach, will go well and pay big time to students who are there to learn.