I agree completely that it's shitty to rebuild, but I actually see Detroit as a case example with regard to why you have to do it properly and not rush the process.
Detroit looked at Seider, Larkin, and Raymond and committed over 25 mil in cap space to those three players. Are those three the core of a contending team? And based on that core, they then threw 4+ m to DeBrincat*, Copp, Compher, Tarasenko, Kane, and Chiarot which is another ~30 mil in cap space. Is that the supporting cast, outside of the asterisked DeBrincat, of a contender? Not to mention Husso who is just dead cap space at the moment.
And by not stripping it to the ground, Detroit has picked largely around 6-15 despite not making the playoffs since 15-16. And there's a big marginal difference between picking top 5 and 6-10 historically.
20 - 9 - 6 - 6 - 4 (Raymond) - 6 - 8 - 9 - 15 (first 1st round picks 2016 to 2024)
I'll skip 2019 because Seider is solid but where would Detroit's rebuild be if they had Brady Tkachuk (4) or Pettersson (5) instead of Zadina (6) and Rasmussen (9)?