For what's it's worth nearly all the excellent executives I've met over the years didn't have an MBA and nearly all the worst ones did...
I asked a friend who had a technical degree from an excellent university, and later got an MBA what useful skills he learned, and he flat out said that he only got it for signaling purposes. As far as new ideas/notions, it was basically absolutely nothing.
A quick glance at any publication on 'managerial studies' will confirm the total vacuity of the field. The average published article is a 'just so' story backed up by a dramatically statistically underpowered study. Managerial science makes social psychology look like quantum physics.
Thing is, the useless MBA image comes from the indiscriminate and formalistic practices of HR recruiters, who would equate an "MBA" with "value". So the incentives have changed from "I want to bring my company forward" to "I want a cushy job with little actual work".
And it is true, that traditional business education has now suffered from this. What I ask myself, if CS will be immune to this. Judging that Fizz Buzz is still a thing, I'd say no.
No, I am not saying that. The words "true MBA" have the same amount of content to them as "a true kitchen sink": zero.
I say that people buy education for different reasons. Some get an MBA because they want to flash their CVs, have a cushy job, and avoid the strains of being original. Others get an MBA because they need the skills, the language, the professional network, and the confidence, that such degrees (at least from good universities) bring for a specific goal they want to accomplish, be that within an already established business or not.
Saying that those kind of mind sets (or only one of those mind sets) is strictly particular to a group of people, which made a certain academic choice is wrong.
In my professional experience, for example, I've met a lot more engineers who were absolutely useless from a business perspective, than I've met useless MBAs. Of course, this is because I've met way more engineers than MBAs.
Because they usually don't understand the fallacies themselves, let alone the argument someone else is making.
it's just what happens when you get a bunch of intelligent pedants in a 'room' together.
"Different people get an education for different reasons" is a nice statement, and I would even agree that it's true. But nothing follows from that. It's not a statement that one can draw conclusions from.
In your original statement you're saying "MBAs are useless now, but it's because of HR, and it sucks that MBAs are useless but it didn't always use to be like that". Now you're saying "no, they aren't useless, in fact they're better than engineers".
Oh, how easy it is to claim a strong point when you're unconstrained by the truth.