My problem with much of this "Smart" stuff is that I only find broken links, paths to no apparent outcomes, and resources applied for no obvious purpose.

Maybe it's just me???
Steve, hardly, I think many of us who don't drink the CNAS Kool-Aide feel this way, and I think that is part of the reason our senior leadership wants to see metrics, because their intutition is informing them that what we're doing at great expense to the American people isn't working. Metrics isn't the answer for most of the things we do in the military due to the dynamic situation. There is also the tendency to bias metrics to create the perception that we're on the right path.

Instead of metrics, we should be able to explain why are actions are progressing towards the desired objective, and how that objective ties into our strategic end.

As for planning, I agree with your reasons, and would add that one of our biggest flaws is identifying the real problems, and then identifying which problems "we" need to address and which ones we should ignore. Design is supposed to help us in that regard, but if the planners/designers can't approach design in an unbias manner they'll shape the design to justify their preconceived views (seen it). It is very difficult to overcome our human weaknesses, and even tougher to overcome organizational bias that is reinforced by peer pressure.