It's pointless getting a marquee unless they are going to attract a croud and pay for themselves. The Eurosnobs enjoyed Del Piero but I doubt to most eggball supporters he is more than a name that they have heard of at some point, if that.
To get the general public involved you need a player that is high profile enough that they appear in the stuff tabloid section (which means just on stuff) and womans day magazine at regular intervals, etc. Preferably they are a cock and have cheated on a high profile wife/girl friend, and are in advertisements on billboards for swiss watches, or sports shoes, that is how you get a profile.
There are only a hand full of players like that, and they would expect more than we pay our entire squad just for a guest stint.
If you can get players like Bonevacia and stay under the cap why would you want to get some ageing has been who's after one final pay cheque, will push a better player out of the starting line up, and disrupt the squad?
As I said before all the names in the NRL and Super Rugby are home grown there is no reason why we can't produce exciting and brand name players here. We just need the media to market them as a superstar and they will become superstars.
While I agree with you that we can (and do) produce excellent players (Rojas, Smeltz, Barbarousas, etc) we have problems with hanging on to them.
In my honest opinion I would rather have effective, likeable imports that are NOT famous household names but are good enough to win us a game after game, and mobile / robust enough to escape the unwelcome attention of the Thwaites and Goodwins of this league.
I would have Roy Krishna in his prime, ahead of Robbie Fowler in his twilight.
The comparison is also not great because the NRL and Super Rugby are seen as the pinnacles of the club/franchise game in each code - so those star players in those leagues are seen to be amongst the world's best where as players that have made a name for themselves in the HAL will always be seen as a big fish in a little pond by a lot of the media / casual football fans.