I see you are starting to understand ;)

Really, this is more of a honorific position for famous authors and those with enough political influence. Some deserve their fame, but they tend to be passed their prime and are far from expert linguists.

Their contributions are often treated as a joke by most French people. One of their mission is to maintain an official dictionary of the French language. The latest edition is nearly 100 years old. And for reforms, they only part of the process, most of the real work is done by actual expert linguists and legislators.

Well then what's their point of existence apart from taking (rather large) bunch of tax money? To point out how much they didn't do every year?

Exactly. Hence

> people with zero or little linguistic knowledge.

They are tilting at windmills.