What you're describing is the "Peter principle":  Let a man rise to the highest level of his incompetence, then promote him.

The problem is that the hierarchy - now for many decades, centuries really! - is dangerously alienated from and hopelessly irrelevant to the lived experience of the very people they are called to serve.  Our shepherds - if we are going to continue to embrace those images - need of necessity to be of, from, and by the PEOPLE.  No more political and feudal oligarchies posing poorly as "servants of the servants of God."  

Not only should our shepherds have Papa Francesco's "smell of the sheep" on them, our shepherds should come from among us, be one with us.  At the parish and diocesan levels, the PEOPLE could call the person they discern to best minister to them without any of the restrictions from the past.  The diocese and Vatican would only confirm our choices.  All persons could be valued and recognized as equals in ministering the Gospel.