I am all for "Smart Power," and generally, smart anything, but I can't seem to extend that to haphazard "Whole-of-Government" approaches, or ill-conceived COIN strategies aimed to locally prop up an ineffective central government, etc...

Smart is as Smart does, but it seems, from recent use, that those who argued it, and plaster "Smart" all over their idea, program, project or policy, do so to mask underlying problems.
These are great comments. I'm personally under the belief that good ole American egos drive this type of discussion. Of course applying power smartly is better than applying stupidly, but simply calling it smart power doesn't make it smart. I have seen little evidence that our government leaders are even half as smart as our founding fathers who actually thought deeply about important topics and had a better understanding of how the world worked then than we do now buried in information overload.

I think you're right, we are masking the underlying problems with our rhetoric and doctrine. The State Department is largely a relic of history and DOD is trying to fix problems that would most likely fix themselves if they just got out the way.