To put it simply there seems to be 2 reasons to use loans.
Add extra quality/ competition to an established squad to achieve promotion (i.e. Leeds/ West Brom/ Fulham)
or
Plug holes where you can't find/ afford (or aren't permitted to sign) permanent players in order to survive or finish mid table (i.e. QPR/ Blackburn)
It's hard to justify the latter as a good way to run a business, although yes as fans it's nice to get to watch better quality players. If this summer is spent loaning players to plug the same holes as last year, we won't achieve promotion and won't be any closer next year... but we will still have spent a significant amount of money.
If we are serious about promotion then we need to sign and loan players now. We have a "bigger than most" task already because of last summers failures, let's not make it a yearly thing.
I'm hoping to see some good permanent signings over the next couple of weeks from England and abroad, otherwise the manager and his scouts need to go. In my opinion the same finish as last year with more permanent players would be progress but I want more, including loans that aren't just to keep us ticking over.
Today we are miles off and need to start demonstrating some new ideas.