I don't think OP is saying "I got tenure, why can't you go through the same process" or anything, I think they're saying "I got tenure, and having been tenured I continue to do good work because of intrinsic motivation and not management-driven incentives, I think we should extend this level of autonomy to everyone and get rid of the barriers to having a tenure-style job."

I am a bit confused; what is your criticism?

My only real point is that my job performance is mostly independent from what my superiors incentivize or hope to see.

Imagining myself as a soldier in WWII, I would like to think that I would have been motivated less by whatever my commanders incentivized, and more by the prospect of beating Hitler. Whereas, in Vietnam, I can't see any motivating large-scale goal or purpose. I think that Art Hoppe summed up the prevailing sentiment in his 1971 newspaper column: "I don't give a damn anymore who wins the day."

That said, hindsight is 20-20, and my argument is totally hypothetical: I have never been in any situation even remotely similar to war.