"Polling junior engineers for their opinion is absurd since the tendency is for only senior engineers to have strategic knowledge of the big picture; younger people tend to have a tough time speaking truth to power in general"
My management experience - all outside F1 - is that the younger people get to see things that senior managers don't
and in the right environment they will tell you what is wrong, even if they don't know or understand the political difficulties in fixing it. Capturing their views can help to validate what their bosses are telling you, and bring new thngs to your attention. Creating an open culture where all this can be done without people feeling their positions are under threat is the art of management, maximising the ability of the organisation to learn from the experience of all who work for it.