Having experienced this on the passing of a colleague, I think there are an equal mix of people that genuinely feel that reverence and people that talk it up in order to increase their standing, and both of those groups are generally in the minority at any organization (with the exception of cults.)

Point being, most people at Apple probably considered Steve as a person.

Regarding the design review practices, that all sounds like good advice and rather normal when presenting to a time and attention limited audience.