While the lure of high LA players from youth camp might seem attractive, I have come to the conclusion it is an illusion...for most of us a 1/7/4 youth camp player is just about as good as a 1/11/4 youth camper, and a 3/7/3 academy promotion might be be better than either.
This is because there just isn't enough time to bring these players up to their LA before the PR drops out. CA1-3 players will be hard to get any match time outside of friendlies or custom cups. Even with good quality facilities and coaches, I can't see a high LA youth camp player achieving better than CA7-8 by age 21 (under 5 seasons) after which his PR is reduced to 2 and then down to 1 by age 23. Let's compare four hypothetical players - two from youth camps with LA7 and LA11 and two 3/7/3 players from academies, one aged 15 when promoted, the other age 17. Here it is assumed players below CA5 get little, if any time in competitive matches but are used in most friendlies, while those above CA5 are used extensively, played in most competitive matches and some friendlies:
Youth Camp Academy
Age 1/7/4 1/11/4 3/7/3 3/7/3
15 3
16 4
17 1 1 5 3
18 2 2 7 5
19 3 3 7 7
20 5 5 8 7
21 7 7 8 8
22 8 8 9 8
23 8 9 9 9
24 9 9 10 9
25 9 10 10 10
26 10 10 11 10
27 10 11 11 11
28 11 11 12 11
Amazingly, the 3/7/3 promoted at age 15 from academy reaches CA9 first, and can reach CA12 by age 28!!! By age 23 both academy players have achieved CA9 but only the LA11 youth camp player will have done this! Of course the rate of CA increase could be increased by playing them in competitive matches much earlier (CA1-4), but there is a limit of how many players can be used this way and doing so would surely hurt the team's competitiveness. The earliest a youth camp player could reach CA11 is at age 23 I think, only 3 seasons ahead of the 15y 3/7/3 academy player...and representing at least 2 seasons where the player must be used in competitive matches despite poor quality.