The trouble I have with models that postulate stupidity,

But I am not convinced that your examples actualy do that.

Here the rube is the managers bosses, why are they so stupid as to think that mismanagement is evidence of superior management qualities? Why haven’t these idiots been sacked?

The idiots are where they are because they have Won -- they have been playing the games of Climb The Coroporate Ladder and Look After Number One But Don't Make It Obvious quite succesfuly. It/s a lesswrongian prejjudice that the only game anyone would want to play is Highly Competent But Criminally Underappreciated Backroom Boffin. They don;t get sacked because their superiors are playing the same game according to the same rules.

You could object that companies where dick-swinging is appreciated more than achieving goals and targets won't have a long term future. Well, if there is someone in the chain who is playing Build A Company with a Lasting Future, then they're being stupid. But rationality is achiveing your goals. They've achieved theirs.