Blunt, yes, but I'd also argue it's painted a little too broadly. I agree, all of the people who "got cut" shouldn't be the ones to make the rules. But there's plenty of individuals that chose to not make the cut by just leaving the game because they found a better option elsewhere (within the military) because they didn't like the current system they were in.
Admittedly, I don't know what that percentage of people is. Is it 10% or 40%? My info is more anecdotal, but the number I can come up with after 60 seconds of thinking about it is significantly greater than 1, and those individuals left their JO tour (and a couple, their DH tour) as a competitive #1 EP. Of course, not everyone had the same reasons for side-stepping the path.
I think what does happen when this discussion comes up is people like to classify the players into two groups: 1) those that made the effort and succeeded and 2) those that didn't make the effort (for whatever reason). I'd argue there's those (like me) that continued to make the best effort, and continued to be rewarded, but wasn't even remotely putting that effort in to continue to climb the ladder and didn't care about the path.
@Brett327 , I'm not saying you are saying that, as I recognize you made the comment "for a multitude of reasons." The overall gist of my post is that it's not binary, and there's lots of people who may be willing to work hard and produce a fantastic product, and are recognized for it, but they're happy to do that as a non-promoting line pilot (assuming policy allowed that).