>> .. at any given point almost half of us have less than 5 years of experience. When half the people don't know any better, it's really hard to use democracy to get anything 'good' done.

This is really a problem, there's inherent value in egalitarianism or democracy, but perhaps due to a lack of deeply technical managers it often plays as you say hard to get anything good done due to bike-shedding and not being led by experience.