Sounds like one organization culls for personality, another culls for skills. Having pondered this, I think culling for personality might make sense in a team environment where skill levels and performance are not going to a have a serious effect or outcome on the team.
Do you hire a chef to work at Taco Bell, or do you train a kid who gets along with everyone?
Conversely, sports teams hire the most disreputable of people because it's ONLY the performance that counts. That could probably be said of needing a Brain Surgeon, do you hire the guy that is a pal and buddy, or someone that has a 99% cure rate, but isn't very social.
Either way, the irrefutable fact is this, more buddies and pals have crashed planes when the circumstance was out of their limited experience and training parameters.
So I tend to lean on the side that if a chief pilot can chase some experience that is relevant to the operation and be man enough to deal with professional people, and not run a kindergarten, maybe the passengers will be better off.
If the argument can be made in real statistical terms that proper training and candidate selection actually is a performance bump over guys with decades in the left seat, I would like to see it.
It just seems to me this a management issue, where the chief pilot just wants guys that all get along, a harmonious group of kids that do what they are told...like the military.