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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.