[godelski]

I think this is an important point. People believe "dictator" means "complete control" when instead "dictator" mean "authority to make any decision." The difference is exactly what you say, that you still have to rely on the hierarchical structure and trust that your "underlings" are making the right decisions. Complete control doesn't scale very well and even a small project or team has many moving parts and the only way to have full control is to be involved in every part. With scale, rapidly comes the necessity for trust. There's only so much time in a day, and only so much can be done in an hour. Damned physics, always getting in the way.