In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work

Even well-known product lead companies like Atlassian employ sales reps, especially at the enterprise and strategic levels, because demonstrating value to the end user is only a part of the sales process. There's lots of additional work that's closer to project management that's required to close a deal. It's identifying and aligning stakeholders, helping to justify budget by putting together a business case for leadership and finance teams who won't directly interface with the product and need to be sold on it's value. This is the sort of thing high level business to business sales reps spend a ton of time doing.

Even if a "good" Realtor actually knows these things (and they don't, even though most think they do), you can't trust anything they say because they have misaligned incentives from you. So what service am I paying for, again?

And if only .001% of Realtors are "good", what does it even matter? You're not likely to be able to find a "good" one anyway. And if I do how do I verify they are "good?" You can't. And you straight up can't change your mind about who you are working with midway through the process, you sign a contract.

If I want home buying/selling services I should be able to pay a fixed fee (either per service or per hour) and get those services on the open market (and pay for them even if I don't close). Them demanding 6% of the value of my house is straight criminal. As is, the buyers agent works for the seller, because that's who is paying them.

>My understanding is that licensing the has since tightened

You're wrong. Even if they have tightened, any dingus can still get a real estate license.

Real estate agents are the house version of used car salesman.

There is the guy at the car dealership who specializes in adding an extended service contract for your new car.

Then there's the guy who sells a software development project that lands a well qualified customer (joy to work with) and a good specification which was well estimated and price so you can complete the work profitably. Maybe you know nothing about formalwear but somebody sells you a suit you really feel good in.

The former is the scammy type, the latter is the type we love to work with.

But the same is true in any industry. Too many of us in technology are doing the technology equivalent of 1--becoming experts in C++ or React--instead of becoming deep domain and user experts.

For one, there's a huge gulf between product sales and services sales. In product sales roles you'll almost never find people who are strategic advisors to their clients. Why would they be -- they'll selling products? On the other hand, in roles responsible for selling services (which may also include products, from a single or multiple vendors), you'll be far more likely to see strategic thinkers focused on business transformation or business outcomes.

That said, there are also very good reasons why even at big consulting shops (Deloitte, Accenture, BCG, EY, etc) the roles of Client Partner or Client Account Lead (the person on the hook for client revenue) is the one responsible for client relationships and client contracting, but is usually not the one providing strategy or technology advice. That comes cross-functionally.

In small tech product companies -- especially where the product isn't just plug & play -- my experience is that the sales rep is responsible for contracting and business relationships, but it's the technical pre-sales architects & the post-sales service delivery manager + architects who are providing the most value. It's exceptionally difficult to hire rockstars senior architects and always will be. It's one of the most in-demand roles in tech.