IMO the sign-off culture would be a problem at MS with or without triads. When you have such a large middle-layer (especially ones with ranks like 'partner' who seem to mostly be faking it) there are going to be loads of people whose chief role is to be a gatekeeper who needs to 'sign-off' on something. There are going to be layers of management who want to perform that filtering and relaying you mention, even though it does nothing for the company. And until some kind of purging happens, that won't change.