It's worth pointing out that this is not a story about "academia". What happens in the top few schools is not a good indicator of how stuff gets done at the vas

It's worth pointing out that this is not a story about "academia". What happens in the top few schools is not a good indicator of how stuff gets done at the vast majority of institutions of higher education. An obvious one is that there's no mention of the quality of undergraduate instruction. Compare that with a small liberal arts college, where there might be no discussion of research in a tenure decision. Another way in which MIT is different is that there's no such thing as getting tenure at MIT due to merit. They can have their pick of researchers from around the world. It's a question of the type of department/institution they want to build. Fit is important - finding qualified people willing to take an offer is not a challenge if you're MIT.