people whose entire job description is "I admin and support these three systems" being unable to do literally anything in their systems without relying on the vendor's help desk for the software.

I have run into a lot of engineers who would better be described as purchasers of equipment. And those roles are often very necessary, especially in fields like manufacturing engineering where you might have a single engineer specifying/buying/managing millions of dollars in capital equipment that makes money 24 hours a day if running and loses money 24 hours a day if not running.

And the usefulness or uselessness of those individuals varies, just as it does with all people. But to think of somebody with an admin title being SO helpless is pretty crazy. But maybe it's a win-win for the admin and the software vendor at the expense of the employer, lol.