Playing Devil's advocate, their choice does have some advantages; for example, when a superior worker is sick, the loss of productivity is higher, especially if in the regular workers model they could get the other nine to work just 10% faster for a few days. Likewise, if one quits, not only there's more work per day not being done, as it might be harder to hire a superior worker.

Their model is probably less efficient during regular operation, but the variance when problems arise also seems lower.

Yes unfortunately human biases can override even simple logic. Perhaps your idea would cause workers to earn more their supervisors which may be a cultural no no

It was quite a long time ago so I don't remember all the details. I have a recollection that the managers paid themselves pretty generously, but I can't say explicitly.

As it was expressed to me the basis for the decision was that the "leaders" didn't believe the workers could handle the load as I suggested, so they went with their original plan.

At the time I attributed it to their rigidity but it could have been about relative salaries. Here I thought doing it my way would actually cost less when all added up.