Thanks for your very long response without a single shred of evidence that merit is not broken. Let me try again with more evidence on the side of merit being broken despite knowing you are unwilling to engage with that.
At the top of the corporate merit hierarchy are CEOs who are in many cases exorbitantly paid to make the world a worse place. Below them are legions of middle management which most researchers agree are overall lowering productivity.
But supposing even we restrict ourselves to the many corporate workers who actually do something. Again taking your airplane pilot example, according to Google:
Airline pilot promotion is not based on merit but on a strict seniority system, where a pilot's position on the list is determined by their date of hire.
Even once a pilot is flying his merit cannot be determined - only seniority. Yet somehow we are going to hire the best pilots?
Let me be clear - giving up on merit is the only way to go beyond DEI.
Only by admitting merit is broken can we get past all kinds of kooky, pseudo-science based systems designed to artificially prop up merit.