No, usually they're going with the option that feels 'safe'. Things that tick the right boxes on paper, but may often end up being far more expensive/difficult to support etc. when it actually comes down to it...

Sure dude.

No, typically the "non-engineers" in this case are management-level types who are at least somewhat skilled in estimating the impact of their decisions on their status with respect to internal politics. That's "business value" in some sense, but not the one you seem to mean.