For the sake of mythological accuracy, I hope that Unicorns sunk by debt and managing to pull into negative ARR (due to overhead costs) will get called Nightmares.
But Zombie Unicorns being an accurate term is enough to make me happy today.
The trick is that not all of the complexity is protective politics -- some of the complexity is carefully created diplomatic language to keep together a coalition of cranky managers who managed to agree on _this very specific version of The Plan_.
And unless you're savvy, it's difficult to tell which part is which, thus the problem OP is having.
Perhaps we should structure life differently, to give more power to the worker, instead of reducing a vocation to an economic formula of parts to be sold.
I’d add to the list of why partial automation isn’t worth it: it’s more satisfying to build a brick wall than babysit a bricklaying machine.
Doing the physical labor is difficult. My father was a bricklayer from ten to fifty, when he finally had to stop working. But he loved showing me the buildings he built. He helped build city government buildings, schools, libraries. The pride he felt, that he’d built something with his hands that would outlast him, kept him going.
We don’t need to solve just for the physical actions, but also for the human experience of building and the feeling of mastery. Particularly for physical trades.
But Zombie Unicorns being an accurate term is enough to make me happy today.