It's the organization that shapes the individual, not the other way around. Changing a cog in an existing gear system only works if the cog is of a particular shape, and it will get chafed and dented if not sufficiently so. If the cog is too different, it will break and be replaced again.
Occam's razor says that if many different people fail within the same organizational structure, the problem is not with those people.
And as said in other comments, for some companies and businesses they are right indeed.
But not in programming / IT in general. At least not where I worked (and where many of my former colleagues worked).
It's all optimizing for short-term and never the long-term. And I have seen people playing the long game gaining a lot so I also know I am not imagining it.
Make it 75% short-term objective and give the other 25% to longer-term planning and/or simply playing with ideas and I'll be very happy to work in such a place.
I am not a fanatic -- and most programmers are actually quite understanding (if a bit too timid sometimes) people.
We just want the pendulum to not be on one of the sides 100% of the time. That's it really.
Example of when this was tried?
We as an industry tried the all engineers thing and it didn’t work.
Have you considered the possibility that the boss’ bosses have a point? That the intelligent people you once respected have been convinced rather than intimidated?