The entire model attracts the kind of "consultants who give advice" you describe. After all, people who want to get their hands dirty, i.e. people who are a good fit with startups, are overwhelmingly going to want to work directly for said startups.
We also had this super weird mismatch with perceived value. The operational VC "billed" agency-style, so by the hour, at (to us) outrageous hourly rates. It was like 6x what we'd pay a salaried employee doing the same work. We didn't "feel" it as bad because it cost us equity, not money. But we'd have never hired that agency for that money, if it was cash. The moment we realized that this was the case, we stopped the collaboration. It was a costly distraction and nothing more.
I'm curious if Hoffman found a way around this, but I don't see it in this article.