[kyboren]

> I found that the difference between faculty members at the same institution can be immense.

Absolutely!

> This is why I think it's smarter to give doctoral students more freedom and flexibility in switching faculty. The school should be supportive of a student in this process.

This is important, but it's not enough. The nature of a PhD means that switching faculty is often not an option. Students 3 years into their thesis work with a budding publication record on a topic often can't realistically just switch to another professor, even if everybody is on board with it. In most cases that means starting over from scratch with a new topic.

So instead students will grind out a final couple (or more) miserable years in order to finally get their degree.