I tend to agree, if he really wanted to leave he'd have kicked up more of a fuss, I suspect the sweetener was the nice pay rise for doing nothing, not a bad job if you can get it, not in charge of anything and pay rises for delivering nothing.
The last bit is like Wenger.
Heavily diluted doesn't work for me. The adverb gives the impression of substance which then contradicts the sparsity that is supposed to be the end effect. I'd have gone with unreasonably diluted which not only reinforces the emptiness but also casts criticism on them that done the diluting.
Für eure Sicherheit