DesertBat - I'd agree that centralised Engineering per se is far from a generically 'bad' thing. (I know one JEngO who threw away his career by falling foul of direct Fg Sqn pressure in a FJ Sqn setup, and I also know a few very poor Engineers who were able to hide poor management and lack of commitment to the task behind the remoteness lent by a centralised Eng entity. ) What I am hearing though is that the current implementation is flawed in both notion and implementation.
Ref your Q ref OC Eng Wg : To those who served around and about earlier in that officer's career this would be no surprise at all.