I think you're directionally correct here, but I disagree with a few of your thoughts.
1) I can't help myself when I see someone hint at some reason for why Strong wound up with Watson at Texas as anything other than the mere fact that Strong really wanted Watson at Texas. Everything else was theater. You can ask folks who were involved with the AD, the media, or in the coaching realm at the time. Strong was given advice not to bring in Watson, so he acted like he was looking for someone else for 3 weeks and then brought the motherfucker in. I went from being excited, to hopeful, to immediately despondent during Strong's assistant staff assembly. Watching people, good posters even, defend the Watson hiring in the early days was depressing. It was a straight up fucking disaster hire and Strong was flat out willful in making sure it happened.
2) Herman could have brought in anyone he wanted for his staff and there were coaches clamoring to get on board. Brewster, who knows him, made it explicitly clear that he'd be interested in coming back to Texas. Herman not only showed no interest, he touted that as a story to make his staff assembly sound like the best and the brightest. Same is true for Traylor. Traylor wanted to stay at Texas. He knew Herman for what he is, but wanted to make it work because of how he viewed his future if he could make it work at the school. I can't remember if Herman just obviously mailed-in the interview with Traylor or was even more dismissive and didn't give him one, but either way, Traylor fucking despised the guy upon his arrival. That isn't because he was fired. It's because of the way he was handled on the way out and the way Herman treated everyone when he showed up at Texas.
So I hope you're right regarding Sarkisian's reach, but the job itself could have created far better outcomes for both Strong and Herman if they weren't fucking idiots in each of their own rights.
To me, everything hangs in the balance with the Sarkisian hire over the next two weeks. If he gets the staff even half right, with the talent on hand, he's off and running. If he can't flex his network and the job itself to get at least a few excellent recruiters, an excellent OL coach, and an excellent DC, we'll be here in 3-4 years or the middle of 2022 after he flames out from the pressure coupled with on-field failings and a firing after missing practice while he's hungover in bed with a coed.