I would suggest position coaches be able to "fix" busts. I think if you tied vol into coaching you would have a more impactful game. I think players being uninfluencable kind of makes this a big problem. Having a player where the outcome is static kind of ruins it. In real life players don't do it on their own, they are very dependent on factors such as coaches, playing time, and other skilled players or veterans at the position.
There should be a cap for players speed, acceleration, strength. For example there is no league even high school in which a WR would have 15 speed, 5 strength sure, but not 15 speed. And there isn't going to be a OL with 15 strength, similarly 5 speed sure but not 15 strength. A player that bad wouldn't even be qualifying for the league.
I disagree on the point that was made that late round players should grow faster, the slow growth is perhaps too slow but slow growth is how late rounders in reality work, they have to train their skills a while before becoming starting caliber.
But even late rounders with coaching, and players to learn from, will become quality players in reality with very few absolute guaranteed failures.
Also it could be added that great players could drop early and be "damaged" or slowed progress from playing before they are ready with poor coaching. I'm thinking the David Carrs and Joey Harrington types. And the Alex Smith types who took a beating early but good coaching and a breather got him back on track to be a quality QB. You also see it in some of the recent lineman when thrown to the fire without a great coach you see them struggle early and it takes time for them to catch on.
In short I think you can best solve this issue by capping how low a players attribute can go, have coaching, playing time, and veteran players, determine growth and not have it static.
Players having guaranteed static stats they will reach is probably my biggest gripe with this game. To mirror reality every player even undrafted should be able to become an okay player (75) eventually in a good scenario but without that scenario high quality players could fail to live up to potential.