He's not a hack. How was he going before he got brought into the side? Yeah he's been groomed, which will be annoying, but so would have Hodge.
.
But the fact of the matter is that Hodge wasn't groomed or wasn't helped at all. He just hit run after run and was ignored because the selectors didn't like him. Other players as well, including MacGill at times (two spinners wasn't that absurd when you consider the quality of both Warne and MacGill) and Bracken is currently experiencing deliberate ignorance from selectors. M Hussey and Elliot bore the brunt of this bias for a while, as did Katich (who conveniently only really got a look in once he moved to NSW from WA).
While there might be an uproar that the ACB didn't develop any proper succession plan for beyond Australia's era of virtual indomitability, a stable yet experienced batting line-up of:
Katich
Jacques
Ponting
Hussey
Hodge
Symonds
Haddin
....Might have been sufficient enough and be as threatening as the:
Hayden
Langer
Ponting
Martyn
S Waugh
Katich (a rare mistake during the golden era, should have been perservered with)
Gilchrist
era. Had theybeen better managed, rather than dropping the, because, in Hodge's case, he could only follow up his double century with a couple of twenties in his next test outing.
Bear in mind, Clarke was dropped for a while. Even selectors would probably admit that despite his first few matches, he was probably ushered in too early and he needed those few games for NSW to finally come good. Clarke was rushed into the side without doing much, and that's why he was dropped 2-3 years ago, and it needed to be done, because he was ineffective and added nothing during the Ashes which Australia surprisingly lost.
While these older heads are still smashing runs at the top of the game, like for like replacements are well-conditioned and experienced waiting for a retirement, long-term injury or loss of form to happen, and they can slot straight in......
At the moment, the Aussie selectors are tossing people in willy-nilly, with one eye on the unreliable strategy of grooming youngsters while they're young (Siddle, Watson), while also realising the absence of any genuine emerging young talent and reluctantly having to consider slightly older heads such as Rogers, Hilfy and McGain?!
Experience at Shield or County level is nothing to be sneezed at. Such has been the quality of Australian cricketers that a third string side could have possibly defeated Sri Lanka, New Zealand and England a few years ago. This third string is still going around, and are still in form and their consideration is warranted. Succession plans are not guaranteed to succeed. It's a gamble. Clarke was a gamble, though the conseqences of selecting him weren't that severe because he was just one inconsistent cog in an amazing XI. And he paid the price by losing his spot. He came back a better cricketer and a deserving member of the XI, but he probably shouldn't have been selected in the first place, strategically and meritocratically.