Does anybody else feel that having a track record in solving beaucracy issues can not really be applied that much in getting a legacy IT system fixed that seems right before cardiac arrest?

about that national development team, IMHO developers don't want to work for the government or on government jobs for a very good reason, hence the good ones are normally in the position to skip such jobs. Quality and management of IT projects is much worse in government projects vs private sector from my limited experience.