I hear you ... and in fact you make a good point re: couple of smart guys (or ladies - sometimes the guys are the problem). It's essential to have people with enough self awareness and security and medium to long term thinking to not bow to as I perjoriatively labeled it small 'c' culture (as opposed to the good cap 'C' culture). Culture like political parties are only as good as the fundamentals they hold up long term.

Part of that skill is knowing what can go wrong. And to that end there's no better short read than Ishikawa's tqm the japanese way.

I also agree with your other point: defects are often seen in aggregate when unfortunately the damage is done and cynasysm and infighting are almost unstoppable.