True - Kolpak is indirectly hurting English cricket as well. I think, whoever was in charge of that decision to revise foreign quota in County didn't see the impact. Now, we have only one quality foreigner & few Kolpaks, some of them are not quality.
If I compare to a scenario of late 70s, early 80s; every County had probably 4 foreign starters & few foreign youths as well in roster, which made the Counties extremely competitive. For example, sometimes in late 70s, Sussex was led by Tony Greig, and they had Imran, Javed, Wessels & Le Roux in their starting XI. At same time Hampshire had Barry Richards, Grineedge, Roberts & Dulip Doshi (?) - later Roberts left & they replaced him with another West Indian - Malcolm Marshall. At one point, Peter Roubuck led a Somerset side, which always had 3 of these 5 in every season for a decade - Viv, Garner, Botham, Gavaskar & Kapil. Nottinghamshire won championship few times & they had Hadlee, Rice, Stevenson & probably Lawson (Or a South African seemer, I forgot) - at Trentbridge, most Test sides of 80s (barring that WI side) would have struggled to win series against that attack. Those days, every County had quality foreign collection, therefore it was the local talent that determined the season outcome. Those days, many quality English born players actually played in League cricket for a confirmed spot, which along with few foreign pros made Lancashire or Birmingham league almost as good as many FC tournaments around.
Now, we have 1 foreigner & Taylor, Jarvis, Tino Best, Harmar ...and who knows making the County under Kolpak. No disrespect intended, but most of these players will struggle to make a secured County spot had they been English, but they are enjoying a nice Kolpak contract. Also, (I am not sure about this, [MENTION=132916]Junaids[/MENTION], please correct me, if applicable), there are lots of South Asian 2nd/3rd generation people in UK, who hold British Passport by birth now. In future, I see many South Asian average players marrying such British born native girls & qualify for Kolpak.