>I have found that some folks like to be "high priest gatekeepers." They want to be The Only One That Understands The System, so they are indispensable, and it also strokes their own ego.

I agree that that happens, but I suspect a lot of times it's not a conscious decision by the person who is doing the gatekeeping. The end result is more or less the same, but often those people feel like they are the only one that understands, not that they intentionally want to be the only one that understands.

It seems like a trivial difference, but having some empathy for these people and finding out which is which makes it possible to deal with at least a subset of these people.