Non-EU folks in Germany as well, for example, don't get the equivalent of a "green card" out the gate either. Looks like it's 5 years in Germany, which happens to be the same for the United States.
As a manager/executive with your company, I'm surprised there weren't EB-1 Visas available, which is exactly the tool meant to support the case you were looking at. Or EB-5 visas, because interestingly, there actually is a Visa (and Green Card track) for entrepreneurs in the US [2][3].
US immigration policies are indeed crazy sometimes. Your friend probably moved to the US around/not long after 2001, I'll bet? Everything ground to a half around then as DHS was getting set up.
But if you're listing all of these failings and I'm finding the opposite to be true with 20 minutes of Googling at a time, I'm suspect of the quality of support you got from your lawyers. Again, I feel a great deal of empathy for what sounds like you guys getting screwed by poor representation. I've had many friends enter the US to work and start businesses with little undue stress.
[0]: http://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/working/guide-to-workin... [1]: http://www.bbk-berlin.de/con/bbk/front_content.php?idart=195... [2]: http://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-through-job/green... [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EB-5_visa