Libertine Seguros said:
It's more the "well, we don't want to go to the Giro. We'll charge to appear. We want to go to the Giro. Oh, they don't want us. Well, we never wanted to go anyway!" sulking, or the miserable bad comedy of "our season's goals are the Tour of California and the Tour de France. Those are the only races we care about. So much that we'll send B-teams to the major classics, and avoid putting in A-squads for pretty much any other race. We can always send the dregs to the Vuelta. What do you mean we're not invited? That was our season's aim!"
I'm not sure I agree with your analysis in regard to A-squad and B-squad.
I'd say that their three biggest "name" riders would be Armstrong, Leipheimer and Kloden. I think it's hard to say they didn't send an "A" squad if one of those riders was at a stage race.
The only stage races they competed in without at least one of them riding were the Giro Sardegna (Horner was 2nd, Brajkovic 4th), 3 days of west flanders (minor race), Vuelta a Castilla y León (Brajkovic 4th), Romandie (Brajkovic 6th), Picardie (minor race), Tour of Belgium (Hermans 6th), Dauphine Libere (Brajkovic 1st), Tour of Austria (3 guys were at Tour, Machado 4th), Wallone (3 guys at Tour), Poland, Denmark, l'Ain, and Tour du Poitou-Charentes.
The only ones that might warrant comment for not sending one of their 3 big names would be Romandie, Dauphine Libere and perhaps Castilla y Leon... but they got good results in those three races.
In the cobbled races... they sent the best guys they had. They just don't have a good cobbled team.
In the major 1-days... again I'm not seeing who else should have gone. Neither Kloden or Leipheimer has ever shown anything in 1-day races. Brajkovic and Horner are probably their best two for the hillier ones and they don't have anyone for the flatter ones.
Overall... I don't see an issue with them not sending their "A" Squads to races... it's just their "A" riders didn't do very well. Their "B" guys performed a LOT better.