I was similarly a consultant and I agree - in those projects (~25%) where I felt that we actually "created value" it was simply by talking to a bunch of junior

I was similarly a consultant and I agree - in those projects (~25%) where I felt that we actually "created value" it was simply by talking to a bunch of junior people (not ICs, but ~managers of managers), kind of piecing together what was wrong (not very hard), and presenting that to the CEO. The CEO never heard this shit by themselves because everything was polished before being reported up the management chain. I literally had one guy saying that a big problem was that the device's battery life was very low, and we should include a second battery. This kind of budget ask would have never gotten off the ground without us, we took it to the CEO and said it would cost $m and he said "sure" and that was that.