I think he was probalbly right to have a little trepidation about the signing.
The guy clearly a class player with a bit about him, but he has a lot of injuries of late which we should be concerned about and look to mange to ensure we get the most out of him. Last thing we would want to happen is another Pantellis scenario.
The Pantellis debacle was the result of a lack of due diligence. Apparently his knees are absolutely shredded, and had the nix actually done a medical first there's no chance he would have been signed. As a result I'm pretty sure they would have done slightly more homework on Stein.
People keep forgetting what a train wreck the recruiting that off season was, in the midst of all the Terry drama. We were signing anyone who was desperate enough to have another shot at a professional career and who no-one else wanted to go anywhere near, that's how we ended up with Pantelis, Downey, Tsattalios, etc.
You keep making this same point but why did we give them 2 year deals? If we, and they, were that desperate (i.e. no one else would touch them) it makes no sense. Also, plenty of other clubs have had financial problems and rumours about players pay, Central Coast especially. Almost every club has lived on a knife edge to a certain extent - I just don't see any evidence that it has ever hindered our or their ability to sign players. Has someone at the club actually told you this is the case, or are you just assuming that's why we signed these guys??
Going on wikipedia only it seems like part of his recent lack of activity hasn't been about injuries, he missed 5 months because of a registration error, plus he had a loan terminated. So no need to assume he's got injury problems - he's clearly good enough for our level - I think this can definitely work.