This allergy to reality is surely the biggest trap not just for startups but people in general. It's surprising but I feel like the norm is for people to care far more about feeling that everything's okay, rather than everything actually being okay.

That said, one problem I see with the anecdotes provided is that the problem solver is doing two things: discovering a problem and solving it. Conflating these two things is a great way to encourage pushback: every change comes with an associated risk, so the general rule is to say no (using whatever flimsy reason) if it's not well understood and agreed that the problem being addressed is a real problem worth solving.