Do you trust a government minion to competently assess either A) this highly specialized person's skillset, or B) the forthrightness of the applicant company's statements?

Sometimes an emperical "good enough" on the international scale is the best you're going to get. In the case of H1B visa program, from the host country's view, lowering the bar will increase the administrative overhead in a system where one could instead apply any increase in administrative capacity toward the already largely exluded applicant pool with high caliber credentials.