William,
I'm not sure what to offer at this point.
I ran through several tests with your league file, and the only way I could get it to generate fictional players was if I had the path to the historical database set incorrectly. So, to me, that still seems like the most likely reason for the problem.
I ran through three seasons with the "days before draft" set to various values, and it always correctly imported the historical players on the selected day.
If you were able to cobble your way past your draft, I would suggest that you keep playing forward, and one day BEFORE you reach the next date where a draft pool is announced, take a full backup of your league file. That way, if you happen to run into the problem again, you would have a backup from just the day before, and you could come back to us and we could try to work through it again before you move forward with the league.
I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you before your league reached the draft!
Steve