Welcome to TT. I doubt you will find anyone on here who disagrees with you, two years ago BK came out and said that the reason we dont sign players in the January window is because players are more expensive and if we do sign a player in the window it will be in the last week of January to avoid paying as much wages as possible. So I wouldn't get too worked up about lack of signings just yet, come the 31st and we've still signed anyone you should be worried.. we usually all are it's almost become tradition that everyone is on here at midnight awaiting to see if we've signed anyone!.
As for the scouting network.. I heard a rumour that it was severely downsized as it was costing too much to run. I don't know if it's true or not but if it is it's an upsetting affair.
I couldn't see Lauren being a decent signing for us to be fair, he's injury prone and is 30 now. We need to be building for the future. As for Ashley Young, I fear we were priced out of the market for him, in my opinion he is still unproven but has potential, he is not worth £8m. I think the reason he is valued that highly is because he is young, english and based near London.