This analysis makes sense to me. I'll add that the little bit of research that's come out suggests individual people are as productive in four day work weeks as five, which doesn't contradict your point.
The other thing is that if leadership is better—they have stronger vision and coordinate the silos (of people or teams) themselves—the communication overhead is less. The more each level needs to communicate, sync, and align with each other, the more it reflects the top not doing it. This is so thoroughly normalized today that it's hard to see otherwise. As you move down the hierarchy, the theory embedded in the chosen org structure that most tech companies have, is that less communicating should be necessary. This is what middle managers (and product managers) are supposed to be for—coordinating and communicating to take that off the plate of their subordinates. The lack of leadership above is why the managers below get hired. Those managers then do the same and eventually ICs need to coordinate amongst themselves.