While I think you made some excellent points, as usual, in your post, I'll take a bit of a different view on your lead (yes, a journalism term).
You can define 'evil' a whole lot of different ways and WDW has some folks working at the highest ranks who just plain are not good people. So, I guess I'd call them 'bad' ... would I call them 'evil'? Probably not because we have so much evil in the world. But they are selfish and egotistical and live by a moral code that I don't feel comfortable with.
And the ''intellectually stupid'' part? Well, Disney doesn't have the best and the brightest. Again, I have met many of these people. Some I have known quite well. They come off as what I have come to term 'Disney lifers' because they wouldn't make it with other media/entertainment companies. They are lacking ... in everything from common sense to higher forms of intellect. I could give examples here, but I see no reason.
All I will say is look at WDW Prez George Kalogridis. I'd never call Georgie stupid intellectually, but I would never term him an intellectual to start with. George leaves a strong taste of ordinary on one's palate. He is where he is because Disney P&R has largely been a 'boys club' and he has played good soldier (you don't know how badly he was abused by Cynthia Harriss in his first Anaheim tenure) and will always follow orders, no matter the cost. ... come to think of it, that sounds evil to me.
As to your last point quoted above, that is absolutely accurate.
If someone gave George a billion dollars and said spend this on improving the actual in-parks experience, then there is no doubt in my mind that he would do so. But he isn't going to fight MM+, even when he probably knows with every fiber of his being that the project is a tremendous waste of money and will never earn the $$$ back that were promised to Iger and the BoD and is an operational nightmare.
