I think you make some good points - and the downvotes are a little unfair - we are by requirement painting broad strokes here, because going into specific examples are veering somewhat offtopic and putting people at higher risk of being overspecific and identifiable.

> They're asking questions to become informed. Some details matter

This is true, but like you say -

> That said, good execs are rare

and the difference, in these meetings between the good asking probing questions and the bad doing it out of unaware self-justification in this case naively look somewhat the same. To go back to broad strokes, it seems easy to convince yourself that once the dysfunction sets in - that as good/motivated people leave over lack of being able to make progress, it's easier to maintain the dysfunction than fix it.

I'm in a part-academic, part-business company associated with a national lab, which means that commercial pressures towards growth are somewhat missing or ill-defined. There are lots of good people who truly believe in what they are doing, but it remains a truth that it's a lot easier to just move people around or let their contracts play out (if not permanent) than fire them, and there is clearly a reticence to promote useful or "essential" people out of the job where they are supporting things more critically that their position technically describes.