Aiton could play in a halfback role if required - he played there for spells for PNG in the World Cup. He at least would be able to add width to the play in that role. As for Crosby, we're in a needs must situation - we need a big body who can at least play decent spells.
The lack of props this year has been too much of an excuse and with better coaching could have been worked around at least to the extent we won a few more games than we have. But with the benefit of hindsight not signing a new prop once we lost Peteru and then Garbutt for long periods, we basically left ourselves two props short of where we should have been (allowing for Oledzki to replace one). We should have seriously looked once Peteru got injured the second time.