What we need to look are the wages of our new signings to know if we have improved. Statistically, at least one or two of our new signings will be average player who we will want to get rid in few years, and if we made them one of highest paid players in their position(alongside paying lot of money for the transfer), then I don't think we have improved. We have continued to do that over the years, even players who came from lesser leagues with really low wages comparable to Premiership wages, we made their wages 4, or 5 times bigger without any reason, and made them ridiculous ti sell(Sancho, Pogba, Memphis, Anthony, even the likes of Telles, Lindelof, etc.).
Mount is pretty good example that we are not exactly planning ahead, considering how much we have paid for player who was in last year of his contract - and no doubt we made him one of highest paid players in the league. Now, he might be good for us in future ahead, and maybe exactly what we need right now(or at least what manager thinks we need), but it's quite obvious we won't be selling him for 40-60m in 3-5 years, IMO.