I've been in these situations many times at various levels. Your analysis feels very spot on... imho you should trust your instincts, you seem very well grounde

I've been in these situations many times at various levels. Your analysis feels very spot on... imho you should trust your instincts, you seem very well grounded. I have in practice found state machines to be best at adding foundations and a mental model for everyone to share. They are bad at making people think they can get simple flow charts of their business processes. The reality has always been, the real world is complex and regular code is already the best abstraction for dealing with it, especially when someone (founder) wants it to be more simple than it actually is.