Cargo culting seems to be inevitable, and probably isn’t unique to gov; think of the imitation of the Spotify model, or of the FDE role spin-up craze. The real issue might be the alacrity of continued adherence when there’s a glut of signals screaming, “Change!”
Second, regarding agile in gov, I wonder if it's inevitable for those methods to get cargo culted without upstream shifts in civil service, procurement, and internal processes.