Serious question because I have never played an organized team sport. If a Uconn team has 10+ decent players, would we see a more balanced distribution of playing time with no more than 25min going to any top tier player? Probably not the quite same but I am thinking for example in the case of an advisor with 6 PhD students, they would likely get roughly equal time from the advisor? If that's not the case, I can see why people want transfer to get more playing time.
If there is a big discrepancy in talent between the starters and the bench, the only way play the bench near as much would be for 3 reasons:
1-- Some of your stars have injury issues such as 2 of my favorites Shea Ralph and Tamika Wiiliams. You don't want to stretch that type of player.
2a-- Many blowouts and games are decided around halftime.
2b- Relating to 2a-- You know your bench is tremendous even by taking out your super starters your bench is just as good as the top teams in the country.
The reason why bench gets minutes is as you've pointed out sometimes it is just necessity too.
But think of this-- you are recruiting Paige and Azzi-- suppose they live up to the hype? Wouldn't it help teh other players to learn how to play with them? And by keeping them on the court, wouldn't it help teh coaches to see who plays best with the 2 stars under different circumstances form game to game?
Because if you get that inevitable close game-- rather than
assume you could
"wear down 19-23 year old kids with a bench", in a different way you working towards a unit that will work best with the 2 superstars (and who knows maybe there is another etc -- or 2 others).
A final point to consider-- if you are a superstar guard / fluid-forward and you are healthy and if you averaging under 25 minutes a game - you might not be too happy. As a result, future similar style recruits might stop coming to your school because "they want to play." OFC bigs though it's different.