I hope you were joking when you said that.
you can recruit 80 noobs, or not very loyal players and they'll be crushed by less then half of that. for a tribe to dominate and win the world, there are several things needed and member count are the very least (not even worth to mention if you ask me).
experience is not just an empty word, or numbers which you gather on your past worlds, its knowledge of what to do, when situation get rough and more importantly how to do it and how to use that knowledge, you don't teach that in a month, or a year, its gained over years and is very valuable and should be considered by the leaders of any tribe.
if you gather your members by just recruiting enemies who jump their tribes at your call, its obvious, most of them just try to survive a bit more. this kind of attitude in members is dangerous, because what will stop them from leaving your tribe, when you face an enemy stronger then you?
this is not just a theory here, I've been on every council position, used to respect my enemies and hate them, used every single method (not proud of it), but never recruited those who were ready to join my tribe right after my first call. imo, every recruit has to prove they're worthy recruiting, not just by skill level, but most importantly by loyalty to their tribes. I've been in situation, when after finding worthy players, I had to convince, beg them to join my tribe, sometimes it has worked, sometimes not.
as for leadership, my opinion is, captains should sink with their ships. its always leadership's fault when tribes fail, reasons can be many, but its still leadership responsible for everything in the end.
I don't hate Gents for what they did and how they did it, seen it in my past lots of times and I'm pretty sure, their recruitment policy will turn on them badly when they face a serious enemy and it will become hard to win.