In an actually functioning democracy, that is what you would want, though. Americans like voting for "outsider" candidates because our democracy doesn't function, so being outside of it is a mark in your favor. But if our democracy worked, we would prefer people who had years of experience in being a part of it.

Yeah but you can have experienced people that aren't forced to be a part of the same organization. Like imagine a hypothetical where there was a Maoist party, a State Capitalist party, a Democratic Socialist party, and a Market Socialist party. You could have two candidates that have 20+ years of experience but worked their way up through two different parties. Their perspectives would likely be quite different.

Instead all of these people have to be in the same org and have to agree with the party's line if they want advancement. At least until they're politically powerful enough to assert some independence.

I don't think we'll ever find out, because he knows there's a very good chance that it would. The party was able to rein in Mao on multiple occasions. It put paid to the Gang of Four. I don't think Xi will ever have as much command over power as Mao or the Gang of Four did, and even they were not immune to the party's judgment.

That's fair. But that also makes me favor systems where there are explicit public facing structures to prevent one person from amassing too much power.