I imagine the people who run the cert board are making a fortune at least.
The exams (like any) aren't perfect, but if you pass the CCT, you need to at least be pretty familiar with common pentest tooling and able to use them quickly and under pressure of time.
They're not perfect and some have said they could use some updating.
As to CREST being rolling in cash, you'd be surprised to find out that, as far as I can tell, that's not the case.
The main org. is incorporated in the UK, so you can see their financial statements for free https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09805375/filing-h... is the list and from a look at their latest accounts, you can see it's not big business...
I also don’t take financial reports as gospel. I’m no finance guru but assume it’s possible / easy to hide money, or it gets reinvested into marketing the notion that crest actually matters, the former at which doesn’t make the thing a giant scam at least.
CRT has a practical element which demonstrates knowledge of tools, and the CCT bumps that up quite a bit.
On the second point, I think accusing CREST of financial shenanigans is a bit of a stretch given you think they should make more money than their public accounts show they do.