Does retaining players equate to newgens and the maintenance of database size?

In anticipation of 11.3's release, I've been experimenting with setup configurations for my post-11.3 'official' career game which I plan to play till FM12.

After some deliberation, I have decided that the configuration below suits my interests best:

1) Top division of the 10 best leagues (Uefa Coeffs) in Europe set to playable to maintain competitiveness

2) Rest of the world's top divisions (except from HK and India which I deemed too minor as leagues) set to view-only (to help with national team scouting if I take an international job)

3) Top division of Argentina, Brazil & USA as playable to prevent European dominance in World Cup etc

4) Top division of Australia, South Korea & Singapore as playable (nations i'm very interested in managing)

To ensure the generation of newgens across the globe and preventing active leagues becoming too dominant over time, I have set all players from top division clubs of every continent to be retained along with a large database. I have done numerous searches in these forums on threads with regards to retaining players and newgen development, and the general concensus is that retaining players would ensure the generation of players for non-active leagues. Although it is not a straight 1 for 1 swap, it is understood that the game would try to ensure that the database size remains relatively stable over time. However, my early crude tests do not support this notion.

The above-mentioned set-up generated 116612 players at start date (gathered using FMRTE). This number seems to be dropping steadily with each progressive season. At last count (game date Feb 2014) player count was 62489! That's about a 45% drop. Now, I'm not entirely sure if this downsizing is normal, I may need to start a test with the same set-up but only with a large database to see if database size remains constant. I suspect that retaining players may be highly effective at the start of a game, but may not provide adequate newgen generation to maintain its size. In a seperate test, I had a look at my current save which is in 2019 and that save has 65529 players. This is with a different league configuration (Top 2 divs of 10 best European leagues plus Argentina, Australia, Brazil and Singapore Top divisions as view-only) and the use of the ultimate retain players DDT file available in one of the threads here with a large database. Using that same league config and DDT file, I started a newgame and it had 89841 players at the start. So although there was a decline, the rate does not seem so drastic. Perhaps, database size decreases and then hovers around the 65000 mark. Will only know for sure when I manage to holiday till 2019 in my current test.

I'll need to also test a configuration with more active leagues to make a fair judgement on whether retaining players provides an adequate alternative to playable leagues. Database downsizing may also be evident in set-ups with many playable leagues which do not rely on retaining players to develop newgens. Perhaps it is less an issue of retaining players being an ineffective tool but more of an issue of the game not producing newgens to maintain database size?

Was wondering if anyone else has opnions/information on this matter or related issues?

Cheers