Agreed with your statement in general. I once added a [citation needed] to a non-controversial technical statement that was false by definition only to have the edit reverted. When I asked for an explanation, the editor replied that the tag "has no place on a highly visible page". I never participated after that point.

People who have a lot of time or have been incentivised to edit wikipedia will always have the final say in what changes persist, regardless of the rules that governs the site.