Everything harder and more expensive is better... in complex, complicated, and intricate systems. We improve tools for brain surgery, yet expertise is still required to do that job. If we dumb that down too much, so that an understanding of the brain is no longer required, there will be a point of outcomes becoming poorer instead of better. The same is true of complex networked systems, storage, and data.

The origins of this post are about the lack of availability/viability/adoption/success with regard to backups. The gripe is that companies don't care enough about it. How would you go about increasing the adoption and success in data management/disaster recovery? Would you make it harder and more expensive, or would you make it cheaper and easier?

I don't think the answer to that question is as obvious as you seem to. Many companies care a lot about whether they're complying with the law, perhaps because complying with the law is often hard and expensive. They'd never dream of hiring someone's nephew to do all their legal stuff on the cheap. Perhaps if sysadmins were a similarly exclusive guild, companies would take those responsibilities equally seriously.

What does nepotism have anything to do with the question I asked?

You're being deliberately obtuse. The fact that nepotism can outweigh other considerations in who gets hired for IT duties (where it would not for e.g. legal duties) is an indicator of the lack of seriousness with which IT is regarded.