Many of us have wasted a few years working on what could/should have been a good project but was hobbled by poor leadership, and aren’t eager to do more of that.

To me, this lead doesn’t know how and/or care enough to identify and focus on key issues and definitely doesn’t mind wasting people’s time with a flood of busywork in lieu of paring this down to some thoughtful incisive questions.

I would expect this to weed out a significant fraction of the good candidates.