Did you not just make Rob M’s point?
None of the problems being recited are the “fault” of Billy Nolen, and he seems to be a valuable member of the management team, but the responsibility for addressing those problems belongs to the Administrator (“Acting” or Congressionally-confirmed).
To reiterate a point I have made many times, a successful FAA Administrator requires no actual experience in aviation. The primary function of the FAA is to provide grants to states and private contractors for aviation services and infrastructure, and to supervise a tiny (relative to its budget) workforce. Managing such an amalgam of disparate (and competing) entities is the very definition of “herding cats”. The job is not one where thousands of hours behind the stick will be at all useful. Every so often, someone will come along with the requisite management skills, who was also involved in some form of aviation, but that’s just gravy, like being photogenic, well-spoken, and thick-skinned.
Who thinks Dale Earnhart Jr. would make a good FHA administrator?