Great overall post LeftCoast.
Your sentence that I'm quoting is exactly how I feel by the way.
My point of contention with the 'tank' crowd, is that they want to sell off practically everyone that is 27 or over. My stance is that by doing this, it would actually hurt the rebuilding process as the team would be put in a position where they'd have to play young players in roles that they are too green for (i.e. Horvat as a #1 C, Hutton as a top pairing D man, Markstrom being expected to bail out what would be an incredibly weak and thin defense).
One thing the Canucks did extremely well these past 15 years, is developing and gradually pushing guys like Naslund, Bertuzzi, twins, Kesler, Schneider, Horvat, etc.
The tank crowd don't seem to realize that there's a lot more to a rebuild than simply immediately selling off all vets and stockpiling on draft picks.
Over the next few years, the Canucks will have plenty of draft picks anyways if they just focus on selling/trading vets on expiring contracts (i.e. Vrbata/Hammer this year, Miller/Burrows next year, Sedins/Hansen in 2018, Edler in 2020).