What you are describing is "bureaucratic collapse". Those extra rules are not meant to support outcomes for the ostensible goal, but a better outcome for the bureaucracy itself. Bureaucracy is not in and of itself bad, it is a very powerful tool, but when it is administered by non-aligned agents and not subject to the proper feedback loops it will always shift goals into protecting itself over its original mission.

Stockton Rush had the perfect storm of a personality that saw everything he hated in "rules" meant to constrain submersible engineering towards safe designs.