Right - the institutional norms and incentive structures facilitate poor quality science and fraud. Getting rid of fraudsters just makes more space for more shoddy work to occupy

Exactly and not necessarily worrisome in itself, to me. Just won't solve the problem of bad science. But if one believes the real problem was fraud all along, I see why they would see that as a solution. What worries me tho is what authoritarian ways of dealing with fraud do to scientific culture.