Would you say that software engineering and architecture aren’t core job functions because they require skills and experience to do? It’s not effortless but these people are being paid top salaries so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect them to have at least a rough idea of what the people who report to them are doing.

This goes double for the other concerns you mentioned: if you’ve created an incentive system where people commonly BS their way into promotions, that’s a major management failure.