Yes, and solving actual problems is a great way to frame a goal. People often equivocate between "optimization" and "improving things", so I don't blame you for

Yes, and solving actual problems is a great way to frame a goal. People often equivocate between "optimization" and "improving things", so I don't blame you for it in particular. Optimization, by definition, requires that something be "overdone", that an objective function is maximized or minimized. Organizations with human decisionmakers aren't incapable of assessing other factors, what priorities not captured by the optimization objective might be relevant, but by framing decisions as optimization, especially throughout an organization or an economy, the pressure against that kind of sanity check is implied and grows the more "competent" an organization is