It absolutely does not usually mean that, there are a ton of finance VPs that nobody would ever let sign anything meaningful without someone up the chain review

It absolutely does not usually mean that, there are a ton of finance VPs that nobody would ever let sign anything meaningful without someone up the chain reviewing it. There are also tons of people who sign contracts for companies who are not VPs. There are companies where VP is really just about comp; all jobs above $x/year are some flavor of VP, even ICs. It doesn't have to always be self-aggrandizing for it to be true that lots of people are now called VP who used to just be middle-managers.