This probably is because many buyers go with the inspector recommendation of their realtor and realtors aren’t going to recommend someone that is too through to the point of risking the deal.
A decent inspector can and will find things, but true it may be difficult to find one.
I think the solution is going to be an unpopular take--learn about the world and be able to do a lot of this stuff yourself.
I bought my house without a realtor and without an inspection. My house needed work for sure, but I got a great deal and learning experience in both the buying and repair/maintenance. I spend my evenings working on the house instead of watching tv and eating garbage. Three years later I have a few 100k in equity.
I do wish the world was full of trustworthy people and life was easy, but no number of bureaucratic requirements are going to make these problems go away. If you live in a world you don't understand, you will be taken advantage of.
In most states, home inspectors are licensed and insured professionals so they can be held liable for obvious omissions from their reports. But there are a lot of holes in the system, and there's no clear guide for inexperienced home buyers to vet inspectors.
The benefit of a good inspector is that they aren't the buyer and thus have no temptation to overlook things the buyer might miss. A good inspector is thorough and will take several hours to perform an inspection of even a small home.
If you can find a very reputable inspector, it's generally a good idea to use them both when selling or purchasing homes. Inspecting your home before sale can identify issues you can quickly address and it gives comfort to buyers to see an inspection report on the counter when they do a walk through.
I got burned with a home purchase early on in my life because I used my realtor's inspector who wasn't licensed in my state. When we later discovered a foundation issue we had no recourse because the inspection report had a disclosure on it.
A general problem in the US is that it's mostly ok to be misleading as long as you have a disclaimer, and that disclaimer doesn't necessarily have to be upfront or obvious. As a result of have a lot of "Administrations", "Bureaus", and "Authorities" that superficially appear to be governmental or reputable but turn out to be scams.