I'd really like us to promote to serie B (to try atleast), even though i'm not so sure it's good for development. I look at other top clubs academy's in Real Madrid Castilla, Barcelona's Athetic and Bayerns - none of these teams are in the second division. Benfica and Ajax play in their second division, but that's probably no different to playing in serie C.
For me certainly top recruitment, facilities and loaning them out early i.e Soule is the way forward and then bring some of them back to play for seniors otherwise you risk sending out a premise to the kids that you are not a serious club.