Lanny Poffo was a good hand and a good guy to have around. He could've been really useful in a variety of roles in WCW if they had utilized him like, at all.
And WWE didn't do anything to sabotage Bischoff's attempt at buying WCW. Turner killed their TV deal and Fusient had no interest in acquiring WCW without a deal.
I shit you not, I'm serious. They brought in the Iron Sheik, well passed his prime, with something like a $200k a year contract, just to wrestle Hogan.
Sheiky Baby got into WCW because of him and Duggan getting busted in Jersey (or wherever it was) for drugs. IIRC he had 1 match with Steamboat and did a promo against Sting that went nowhere. He was never brought in to wrestle Hogan as Hulkamania was still running wild in the WWF with the Mega Powers exploding.
For the life of me, I cannot fathom how Bischoff has somehow turned around his image of an absolute failure, to some sort of guru, by having a podcast shitting on Tony Khan. It's not like WCW under him was in anyway shape or form functional other than blowing obscene amounts of Ted Turner's cash. He is basically Tony before Tony existed.
I'm not a huge fan of Bischoff, as he tends to downplay numerous mistakes he made over the years, despite owning up to others. He does have the perspective of having been in the business and does have a really solid mind for live TV production on a national level, something which most other wrestling commentators don't have (ie, Cornette was pretty much only ever regional, which is a very different beast.)
A lot of the shit that we take for granted nowadays was pioneered by him, like it or not.
And keep in mind, Bischoff 'turned around' his image as a result of Tony Khan taking potshots at him and pissing him off.
Side note, Sheik in WCW was before Bischoff showed up. He was still in the AWA, coming up with bangers like the famous "Turkey on a Pole" match, to save Verne Gagne's company.
From what I recall, Bischoff was never involved with creative in AWA. He handled advertising sales and was an on-air talent but didn't have any real say in production (although he did learn a ton and, depending on whom you listen to, sewered the guy who mentored him.)
WCW in general was just a tire fire more or less from day one, but they were influential on a lot of shit and did try a lot of out of the box ideas (eg, World War 3, Lethal Lottery, etc.) I was never really a huge WCW fan as up in Canada we'd get a chopped down version of Nitro on Tuesdays, but I'll give the devil their due.