Useful redress for a bureaucracy taking lawful actions within the guidelines specified is never "let's fire the civil servant". They're not out to enact their agenda, they're trying their level best to achieve the goals set.

(Same way firing L3s doesn't help with execs setting a bad direction)

If that work is nowhere close to the perceived will of the people (again, please, let's not debate "what's the actual will though"), it's a failure of executive and legislative to create clarity.

You're right, ultimately this is about legislative and/or executive having conversations with experts to set the right goals and guidelines.

But you'll need it to be a conversation, and you need to leave room for independent decisions within a larger framework. The EO does squash all discussion or feedback down to "president's always right, ask the president". This makes redress harder, not easier.

Centralized command and control looks appealing because it simplifies a lot of things, but it breaks down because it assumes a single person has all the answers.

And this particular EO makes it worse, because it also directs agencies to ignore judicial decisions unless the president says so. Maybe. The writing's very unclear: "No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General."

What's "positions advanced in litigation"? Does it include injunctions/restraining orders? If it does, there is no judicial redress at all. Which means accountability is reduced, not increased.

I don't disagree with you that there need to be limits to regulatory authority of a bureaucracy. But this EO is very much not it.