"...ended up with managers who slowly lost their technical skills and essentially fossilized, and couldn't make rational tech decisions"
There's a connection here. A technical manager can't make reasonable tech decisions unless they do some tech work, but perhaps we just need to be more clear that what you want is a pure project manager to check off boxes.
I think a good tech manager still respects a bottom up approach most of the time, but should have enough experience to push back when the group is steering in the wrong direction. A generic project manager isn't going to do that.
"...ended up with managers who slowly lost their technical skills and essentially fossilized, and couldn't make rational tech decisions"
There's a connection here. A technical manager can't make reasonable tech decisions unless they do some tech work, but perhaps we just need to be more clear that what you want is a pure project manager to check off boxes.
I think a good tech manager still respects a bottom up approach most of the time, but should have enough experience to push back when the group is steering in the wrong direction. A generic project manager isn't going to do that.