Concur entirely Engines. Just the other day I was talking to a Lt RN who had been forced to endure the spectacle of a 1 star - with much theatre, making the same decision, for a single aircraft, as the Lt had been authorised to make in his previous job.
How often do we see the requirement for a brief such that those with the empowerment (some number of needless stars) can have a fraction of the SA of the experts? Why do we insist on wasting peoples' time pushing decisions up the chain when they could be made easily, and appropriately at desk level?
The other function this staffing performs is to ensure, due to lag in working group, to steering group, to programme board, to service board that by the time the 3 star makes the bleeding obvious decision that the SO2 could have made for him, we are three months down the road and the SO2 is trying to make the next decision - but is merely (forlornly) penning another brief for his SO1.