IMHO, cascading is OKRs' real power. It forces the organization to say no to most things, which sharpens its focus on what needs to be done.
Throw that away, setting aligned SMART goals would achieve a similar effect as aligned OKRs.
Throw that away, setting aligned SMART goals would achieve a similar effect as aligned OKRs.
I suspect folks don't like that because it forces middle management to actually decide, for real, who is doing what, rather than allowing multiple different teams to fragment off chunks of what should be a whole (which then lets them both claim personal victory and deflect blame for the whole actually failing)