Makes sense! You can definitely build a top-tier off-meta team for less than you'd expect.
Also if you're going to focus on crossing then you might want to give the 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 a go - usually with those formations you have plenty of space wide to bombard the area.
Depends on your team - mid Desailly is one of the best CBs in the game if you can swap him with someone (e.g. headliners Acuna who becomes one of the best midfielders in game, or base Matthaus). I'd probably get him and then the 83+ x25 pack to save for TotY.
The 89+ mid icon isn't great - here's the potential list. Bolded are wins, strikethroughs are crap, normal text is somewhere in between:
GK: Yashin, Casillas, Schmeichel, VdS
DEF: Maldini, Baresi, Nesta, Puyol, Alberto, Cafu, Moore, Cannavaro, Hierro, Blanc
MID: Maradona, Zidane, Matthaus, Baggio, Ronaldinho, Pirlo, Bergkamp, Gullit, Xavi, Schweinsteiger, Beckham, Hagi, Riquelme, Ballack, Scholes, Nedved, Lahm, Kaka, Giggs, Socrates, Gerrard
FWD: Pele, R9, Puskas, Garrincha, Eusebio, Cruyff, van Basten, Del Piero, Butragueno, Cantona, Best, Stoichkov, Dalglish, Figo, Rivaldo, van Nistelrooy, Eto'o, Henry, Shearer, Trezeguet, Drogba, Lineker, Sanchez, Rush, Laudrup, Klose, van Persie
By my reckoning that's 16 wins, 29 borderline-unusable players, and 17 who won't light the world on fire.