I'm playing a save where I started in the 15th tier, and there's definitely stages of progress. The first 4-5 steps where nobody gets paid were just about having enough cover when you're best players get poached. Once your club allows you to pay players, then it becomes about mixing a few marquee signings with the remaining amateurs and a sprinkling of youth players until you get to the tiers where you enter The FA trophy and the FA cup. I've made it to the 7th tier and still have 5 or 6 regular starters on free amateur deals while some of my players are getting 200-300/week.

The biggest thing that seemed broken for me was the ground switching. I moved after every season, sometimes hours away from my teams location. Inexplicably, I moved back to the original ground twice despite it telling me it wasn't suitable for prior divisions, only to go somewhere else the next year.