> I have been in the position where the VP of IT wants to have his cake and eat it too: VP salary while micromanaging variable names that the dev team uses so that he can relive his salad days as a tech lead.

While that may be the reason in that particular case, it seems to me the more common problem for micromanagement isn't a desire to relive one's days in a position lower on the org chart, its simply lacking the skills to operate at one's new level. Or, I guess, a corollary to the Peter Principle: people tend to work at their level of competence, despite being promoted to their level of incompetence.