Honestly, if any other coach at K-State besides Frank went out and signed recruiting class that contained 2 legit D1 players and 4 busts just two years removed from an Elite 8 run (or any other kind of similar run in another sport), the Frankites would be absolutely out of their minds with rage.
I like how you use the Elite 8 run as a negative for Frank's tenure.
If any KSU B-Ball coach takes a team to the Elite 8 and follows it up with back to back NCAA tournament appearances with wins, I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt on their recruiting.
What in essence you're saying that middling conference finishes and an opening round win would always be good enough, and that's fine, I'm pretty much down with that myself. But with that in mind, we must then agree that Frank was literally at the top of the pay scale for coaches with that kind of career track . . . thus rendering the "Pay Frank" 2.0 campaign silly and wasted.
I would give a coach a lifetime contract at KSU if every 5 years he would:
Make the tournament 4 times
Win a tournament game every time he went
Make one run to the sweet 16 or deeper
The basketball related items such as recruiting, shmoozing donors, good PR, etc all only matter to me in how it relates to winning. Frank won and I liked him. If he recruits like crap, I don't care so long as he wins. If a bunch of big $$ donors hated him, I don't care. If he has a terribly annoying voice and is really awkward, I don't care. You can say his recruiting was going bad and was going to a downward spiral and maybe it was, we will never know. What I do know is that Frank won enough while he was here for me and that's what I judge on, winning. Although I didn't like the oscar hire, I will judge him based on winning as well.