I agree with this, but I'm not 100% sure that's how Gregg views the world. I think back to two recent Scuffed podcasts (props to
@InstaFace for getting me onboard over there), one with Eryk Williamson and one with John Muller, a soccer analytics writer for the Athletic. Williamson noted how difficult it is to learn Gregg's system. I'm not saying he was critical of Gregg, but he stated it took him three camps to get the basics down. This probably explains better than anything else why Gregg prefers familiarity over other factors. Pefok has minimal recent experience in Gregg's system, so I am not sure how much form really matters. In the Muller interview, both Muller and Belz claimed that Gregg has styled his system after Pep's. Not sure how much Pefok has a role in a positional play system like that. We can argue the merits of putting system over players, but at this point it doesn't much matter.
Not sure how Balogun fits, and reports are out that he is set to choose the US, but I imagine he's more in the 2026 cycle anyways. Another bullet in the chamber can't hurt but I don't see him playing a role till after WC2022. By then it hopefully won't matter as we should have a new manager by then.