I agree with another commenter that this not something that people consciously think about when they do it. I think the main thing you’re touching on is groupthink. This is the reason that groups of people behave differently than you’d expect individual people to.

Positions of leadership (and therefore power) as an institution are traits passed down to us from Feudalists who organized society in hierarchies. I would say groupthink allows these kinds of social structure to continue long past the point that people realize there a better ways because they assume other members of the group are okay with them.

That’s all not to mention the fact that some people are genuinely skilled leaders or that people in positions of leadership are going to have a bigger influence in what is accepted in the group.

if i had a nickel for every casualty of war that had nothing to do with said war, i’d have 50 million nickels.

You’ve definitely got more than enough to get started. Only thing I would recommend here is read through the adventure if you haven’t already. Also don’t be scared to improvise if the situation calls for you. You decide the rules you want at the table, not the books. As long as you stay consistent feel free to make any ruling you like if it works for your table.

I browse all and I would say there’s more content now than when I joined. It’s much easier to find content where actual discussion is happening too

PopSci is tricky because on one hand, it’s great that there’s a lot of interest in learning about science and it should be promoted, but on the other, the vast majority of research is so complex that you literally cannot explain it to the layman without making it wrong in some way.