My mother worked as a photo-editor for a textbook publishing company many years ago and it was ridiculous how many meetings went into making sure they balanced the distribution of people that appeared in the books.
In the the 8 years that Adobe employed a similar style, starting in the mid 90s, it clearly managed to do so without even an inkling of diversity: http://splashscreens.sourceforge.net/acrobat.php Depending on the year you look at, the 90s version is less abstract than the current examples we're discussing here, but some years are actually more abstract. The lack of diversity is fairly clear to me regardless of that variation.
Of course, whenever we analyze abstract visuals, biases come into play. So maybe this read above is rooted in my own bias (either in favor of being able to make a point here, or in regards to how I believe a 90s corporation would portray "the business user"), but I think that's a stretch in most of these examples.
Everyone knows who the CEO and key executives are since they are visible at every product release.
It's not a literal take on the word faceless, there are faces, they're just not real. The real ones don't face you.
Buy a Mac, get it repaired, training etc. All in-store with an Apple employee.
No they don't. For a lot, sure. Most? No.
These people the interact with are part of the faceless attribute, they're usually pretty robotic interactions. But yes, they're a great part of Apple. To talk to a human.
>All in-store with an Apple employee.
They will usually say: "Okay let us take a look." and "Okay we took a look. You need a new X."
It's not the most faceless, but it is one of them. It's nearly impossible not to be faceless in this market.
i.e. not looking like people at all
Unfortunately, they all seem to have elephantiasis instead.
Your description reminds me of another classic corporate clip-art style from the 90s, the infamous Microsoft "screen bean":
It's all about that fake outrage and fake pandering.