Hi!
Apparently the Wikidata hierarchies were simply too complicated, too unpredictable, and too arbitrary and inconsistent in their design across different subject areas to be readily assimilated (before one even starts on the density of bugs and glitches that then undermine them).
The main problem is that there is no standard way (or even defined small number of ways) to get the hierarchy that is relevant for "depicts" from current Wikidata data. It may even be that for a specific type or class the hierarchy is well defined, but the sheer number of different ways it is done in different areas is overwhelming and ill-suited for automatic processing. Of course things like "is "cat" a common name of an animal or a taxon and which one of these will be used in depicts" adds complexity too.
One way of solving it is to create a special hierarchy for "depicts" purposes that would serve this particular use case. Another way is to amend existing hierarchies and meta-hierarchies so that there would be an algorithmic way of navigating them in a common case. This is something that would be nice to hear about from people that are experienced in ontology creation and maintenance.
to be chosen that then need to be applied consistently? Is this something the community can do, or is some more active direction going to need to be applied?
I think this is very much something that the community can do.