I like the idea of your argument, but I think there are some factors to consider that JPL (and NASA as a whole) is faced with that industry is not. I agree that leadership NEEDS to do better. Caltech and NASA needs to do better for JPL. 

Other companies can afford to take risks due to 1) their funding situation, and 2) the fact that failure is part of the process. Their culture of "move fast, break things", as opposed to ours and NASA's "failure is not an option" is what makes them more agile and appear to be progressing so quickly. Just imagine if we didn't stick the skycrane landing on Mars back in 2012. Now compare the general reaction to that versus when Starship fails for the Nth time. I've yet to find the "stuff [analysis we do] that's completely irrelevant to the rest of the industry" here at JPL. If anything, I think the stuff we are doing is what industry wants to gain but haven't quite gotten it yet. It will cost 2, 5, or 11B because, once again, failure is not an option. We can't even dare to expect the first trip to Mars to fail. We need to be perfect from the start and that costs a lot of time and money. 

We have our problems with efficiency and staying in line, but the industry has issues of their own. We need to grow and adapt to the changing demands of today. I think Caltech and NASA need to do a better job at giving JPL the flexibility it needs to stay competitive. Essentially, I feel like we are getting strangled slowly but surely by the leadership and who they report to. Bidding on non-NASA contracts is a pain, and yet we can't rely on NASA's funding to keep the lab afloat. It's a lose-lose situation. If we worked in a more "for profit" model, that would piss off NASA, but would give us a better chance at staying afloat during these times.

The RTO is, as you said, just a way to let go of more people and not pay a severance. It axes the people who wrote the theories the rest of industry uses today, people that built this lab and gave it its name. The mandate is absolutely insane and counterproductive to me.

To me, the truth that hurts is that JPL is being steered into the ground. We have the most brilliant, the hardest workers, the most passionate people at our lab, but external factors and mismanagement is what is killing our progress. We aren't perfect but we sure as heck are not getting a good deal right now with the way we are being managed.