Unfortunately, I have to agree. I've been hired into an informal "staff/principal" role for my part of the organization and it's simply impossible to work. The other staff/principal engineers I see here are exactly how you describe. They are against anything that will make their roles as "the oracle" less important.

Documentation is such a mess because of that and the onboarding process specifically says there are a lot of "oral history" newcomers have to learn before doing anything meaningful.