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Your point also got me thinking, there is so much outrage among the analytical section of the fanbase about the M's seemingly overweighting Veteran Goodness and grit as an attribute in player personnel decisions. Now, in a vacuum I think this is a perfectly reasonable critique, but maybe there is something going on that the analysts are not appreciating here.
We've been talking recently about the lack of a strong winning baseball culture in Seattle as an organization overall. Maybe, just maybe, the JZ and Wedge and even LincStrong's of the organization are fully aware of this being a shortcoming of the franchise...and they are trying to fix it as best they can. So, the consideration of the attitude and experience of a player is weighted more heavily RIGHT NOW in decision making, because they see a specific void that needs to be filled.
There have been and continue to be an awful lot of impressionable kids coming into the league for the M's since JZ got the pipeline flowing...expecting them to create their own strong team culture is asking a lot and probably not realistic. It might end up more like Lord of the Flies! :) Remember a lot of these kids are competing with each other for jobs and big paychecks, not just selflessly trying to build up The Mariners as a team/organization in the abstract.
I am thinking this is a deliberate, specific strategy by the M's in response to present conditions...not necessarily some fatal flaw of the team's strategic DNA. (It doesn't hurt that it fits in with the Nice Night at the Ballpark culture that guides the business side of the org.)
Purely speculative, but I generally find that whenever I think someone is doing something seemingly stupid and inexplicable, there is usually a decent rationale for it when I look deeper.