A pointless lateral move at best, justified by complete balderdash about "character." Indeed, a big part of the reason that that trade was so enervating was precisely that it had absolutely zero to do with hockey and everything to do with an ossified management's ego.
Other than that, it's been less about trading away talent for character and more about high-profile plodders like Alzner, Benn, and even Shaw, not to mention McCarron, bums like Ott and King, etc., without bringing in a critical mass of talented players to make us overlook his asinine self-justifications about "character" and "attitude."