I've seen some of that in banking, where retail banks will have things like 15 levels of sign off (ok I jest but it feels like it) before any new release, because the financial bodies that govern them require there to be a set of compelling reasons and a huge doc-trail before anything happens.

But some banks (Starling in the UK) seemed to be able to work around that and have a decent CI/CD story, and as you say - it doesn't usually make the software any better, just adds bureaucracy.