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action to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s)."

The distinction you mention is semantic and academic at best. We have here a
committee which is not only manifestly decreeing policy in a way that toys
with the philosophical foundations of this project, but even preparing
itself to make content decisions, both things the committee was and is
(supposedly) not supposed to do. I welcome you to make your case, but to
pretend this isn't a big deal is an insult to the intelligence of the
community that you represent -- it is a very big deal.

Administrator status is "not a big deal" precisely because we can
self-police amongst ourselves. Reprehensible actions are less problematic on
a wiki precisely because they can, in most cases, be quickly reversed. This
ability of anyone to edit, more than anything, is what makes a wiki a wiki.
Obviously, with blocking and protection, we have made necessary concessions
to the reality that too much chaos can be damaging. As a community, we
expect that consensus will show us a proper path, further reducing chaos.
But here and now, we're providing an avenue by which adminship is absolutely
a "a big deal" because any admin will, for any reason, be able to take any
action of any kind against any user or article, without any need for petty
things like consensus or discussion, and without any easy way to reverse
that action. It takes that pesky "wiki" process out of the picture; so much
easier to run the project when people can't easily edit, no?

We're even threatening dire consequences for any user, admin or not, who
dares to challenge one of these actions without filling out the proper
paperwork to request permission to do so. "Be bold!" we say -- just not if
you're the second person on the scene. Specifically, I see a lot of mention
that we should trust the good judgement of administrators, and yet this
policy decree seems to do the exact opposite.

Where are the consequences for abuse or misuse of this power?

We as a community should be very careful when erecting systems which will
inevitably become barriers to the creation of content and the free editing
of the wiki, or which will enable users acting unilaterally to create such
barriers arbitrarily and without easy oversight or accountability. We as
individuals should be very careful to scrutinize the Arbitration Committee
when it seems to overstep its bounds, as many users seem to think it has
here.

The remedy is, as of yet, untested, and I believe predictions of impending
doom are a bit overblown, but the fact remains: this is not a minor issue
and should not be dismissed as one.