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Great post, Matt.
As someone who was very much behind the trade(s) when they occured, (primarily based on my belief that Carp could be a long-term solid MLB player), I think it is important to understand the trade was valuable in large part based on the landscape for the Ms at the time.
The ugly truth is the Ms were dreadfully awful over a multitude of positions, and had a farm club with almost nothing in the nearly-ready state.  ANY GM was in a position where they were going to need to shove bodies into half the starting lineup spots, rebuild a bullpen, resolve the miserable backend of the rotation - and address the reality that the farm system was a mess.
It's quicker to name the 'decent' starting spots for the Ms coming into 2009:  RF, 2B, 3B, SP1-SP2, (most didn't include Wash as decent).
Putz for a boatload of AAAA talent was a major coup for Seattle, because Seattle didn't even have decent AAAA players to call on.  The farm consisted of Clement and Wlad as "near ready", and RRS as another demi-prospect. 
Necessity is a mother.
Seattle post-Bavasi wasn't far removed from Whoville, post-Grinch. 
There was incredible room for improvement because the existing talent base was so dreadfully bad.  Honestly, Z would probably be considered even more of a genius if not for the miserable performance of 2/3 of the returning 'decent' bats in April/May.  One must remember that when you're attempting to replace production like: Sexson, Vidro, Weaver, HoRam, Feierabend - the bar was awfully low. 
The thing that's really interesting is that once Beltre and Lopez began hitting, the team was producing at a .770 clip in team-offense. 
Z did what was necessary.  He did it well.  But, Wak is the one that has managed to get the most out of the talent given.  Obviously, he had more success initially with the new player rather than the old, (except for Ichiro).  Then again, Beltre was playing hurt. 
I think it's important to realize that when you've lost 101 games, it is EASY to make progress.  Yes, the Ms have exceeded expectations this season - but it WILL get progressively harder to improve.  The farm is still extremely weak.  The club is still just beginning to repair the damage from a methodology for prospect development that consisted of handing any "athlete" a full-time gig, then kicking him to the curb the instant he failed.
The reality that the AAAA pitchers leapt over the existing Ms AAA players is evidence of how bad off the Ms farm happened to be.  That, coupled with the reality that it was a near-30 indy league pitcher jumped past everyone, too, really points not only to how bad the Ms farm was, but also how bad it is viewed by Z.  Five years.  That is about how much time I would say it takes to turn around an entire farm system.  Until you do, there's no choice but to try and steal near-ready talent from better farms.