[LeifCarrotson]

> What are these people for?

I consider it unsurprising that a bureaucracy gets taken over by bureaucrats. The rest of the faculty is too busy doing research and teaching classes to bother with office politics, climbing the ladder, and increasing staff counts at levels of the ladder beneath themselves. The professors consider the importance of their research and teaching efforts to be self-evident, so there's no need to waste time justifying them, trying to convince people that they're important or that their department budget should be increased.

You see a similar effect in tech companies, where engineers building the company's product get relegated to the sidelines after the technology is proven or the market is captured, and MBAs, management, and sales become the dominant forces within the organization...engineering is still focused on the product, with their careers an issue that they assume will resolve itself, while the MBAs are entirely focused on their careers.