Agreed. This is par for the course with most of corporate America. New head honcho comes in and he either fills positions with his friends/allies or promotes the best brown-nosers among the remaining middle-tier managers.
Nadella has done some great things with Microsoft up to this point. Let's see if this new strategy pays dividends.
Nadella has done a lot to get rid of the "rust" created by Ballmer's long tenure at Microsoft, and has done a very good job so far.