MLS has apparently seen the light. According to MLS Insider, all home grown restrictions are being removed in time for the 2011 season.
Previously, MLS teams were only allowed to promote up to four players per year to their senior roster.
Although details are lacking -- we don't know if any/how many will be Generation adidas, or how the home-grown players will count against the cap and roster limit -- it can only be seen as good news, especially in Vancouver where restrictions on the academy were often viewed as a reason not to move to MLS.
It should prove to be a further incentive to TFC to get its academy expansion plans up and moving as well.
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Allowing academies to grow is a no lose proposition for MLS. You give back to your community -- growing your fan base while doing so -- and mine cheap talent to fill out the bottom half of your roster. Every few years you develop a real star and ride him as long as you can before he's sold to a bigger league with the profits going back into your academy (and towards buying aging European stars your fans like).
The only potential argument against it is that it might put smaller markets at a disadvantage. Since Salt Lake is widely viewed as having one of the best academy set-ups in MLS right now I'm not sure I agree. Or care. My feelings on forced parity are well established. If New York is churning out star after star then good for them. The rest of the league will just have to try harder.
The change also takes a bit of the bite off the lifting of the Canadian quota lifting. The three Canadian teams now have even more incentive to develop Canadian talent.