I completely agree that execution and a culture of effective execution make a huge difference, but the "visionary" strategic stuff gets written about.
But is there a distinction to be made here between high-level strategy/direction vs. mid-level planning and low-level execution? It's hard for me to imagine that senior leadership of a company w/ > 50 people just rubber stamps ideas from below.
For example, senior leadership might say, "this year we're going to grow fruit" and they may accept proposals from below for bananas or oranges or apples. But they wouldn't accept proposals to manufacture cars.
For sure, different companies have different gradations of freedom for mid to lower level employees to engage in decision-making and planning, but it's always a slider and upper level leadership would always hold tightly to the top end of the slider, no?
In a vacuum, yes. But the implementation is harder. Requiring everyone to simultaneously change pronunciation and writing is more difficult than changing one or the other first. In Chinese, these two things can be separated.
And in a vacuum, yes. But if you think a global language is worthwhile, you'd settle for pronunciation or writing first, rather than demanding both. So while it is a desirable feature of a global language, it is not a necessary feature.