Agree with you but would add that even on the professional managerial side it is indeed a luxury - yes for many people it would be possible, but there's also many people (in startups, or small businesses, or not small but struggling businesses) whose options are as limited as teachers.

Some of whom might have good options for changing jobs, or good hopes of things improving in the near future, but for many it would be the lesser evil compared to trying to find a different job with the same positives (whether salary or other motivation) but without those negatives.

> As for reducing: research, grad programs, journals, media inquiries - these are not optional for profs

For a tenured professor (and someone who runs the department's grad program and teaches many classes almost certainly has a tenure) all of those are optional. During my PhD I have seen all sorts of arrangements, including tenured profs who taught minimum load and did nothing else. No grad students, no special courses, no seminars, nada. I am not advocating this. It is, in my book, not a good approach unless you spending all other time to solve Riemannian Hypothesis or something like this. But tenure gives a prof a lot of leeway on how much to work and what to work on. My 2c.