I do not I agree with your assessment of whether imbalance is a problem. It is one of the reasons for abandoned teams. Not everyone would abandon a hopelessly last place team as some would see it as a challenge, but many would abandon such a team and not deal with the frustration.

I still like the idea of having the draft run more like the montly FA drafts in RT leagues but with more rounds. A 10 round draft. You keep or cut to get below 35 players by as many players as you want to pick. There is always a risk in the later rounds that the guy you cut was better than the guy available to you, but it is an owners decision. If you have a powerful deep team and expect to pick late in round 1 where the superstars will be gone, perhaps you just keep the guys you have and don't enter the draft. If you have a lot of fringe players, perhaps you cut 10 guys to get to 25 and then draft in all 10 rounds.

This lets the weaker teams have the opportunity to get stronger without forcing the strong teams to get weaker.

By throwing the cut players into the draft, it also opens up the pool of available talent. Cuts would need to be made a few weeks before the draft so you could see who was available for your draft lists.