I don't accept the OP's baseline premise. There is little equivalency between AF organizations and those of the Army.

Most squadrons in a wing vary greatly and are composed of anywhere between a hundred airmen to over five hundred personnel. An aircraft maintenance squadron or security police squadron, for example, commanded by a Major or Lt Col might easily have 3-500 people, but a base support squadron of around 1-2 hundred would be commanded by a major or senior captain. A flying squadron might only be composed of as little as 100 people, of which half are officers, but is commanded by a Lt Col due to the rank composition of the squadron and the responsibility for operating almost a billion dollars in aircraft.

Groups are equally diverse. A wing's logistics group is commanded by a colonel and is composed of a number of squadrons, with total manning easily reaching well over 1,000 depending on the size and type of wing. The operations group is similarly commanded by a colonel, with perhaps only 300 people, but most of them are officers and they operate several billion dollars of aircraft in several squadrons.

Wing commanders are in charge of the base and the wing and are almost always colonels, with the occasional brigadier commanding some exceptionally large or high-profile wings, with total manning between 1,500 and 2500 people or more being quite typical. In my decades in the AF, I never met a single brigadier wing commander, although there were some out there.

It's not just about the number of people in a unit, it's also about the warfighting capacity of the unit and the value of the assets it operates. A nuclear wing could destroy an entire country overnight, for example, and operates billions of dollars of aircraft and equipment. Look at the Navy--a submarine may only have 100 or so people on board, but is commanded by a Cdr or Capt because it's a scarce, high-value asset worth billions and has immense firepower. So, to similarly compare an infantry company commander employing rifles and mortars to a fighter squadron commander operating two dozen F-15E's is illogical.

None of this is meant to in any way denigrate the Army whose mission is equally important and demanding--but different. I'm just pointing out the flaw in the OP's premise regarding organizational structure comparisons wrt rank and mission, even back to the AF's early days when it first devolved from the Army. It's apples and oranges.

I can't account for your anecdotal observations, most of which strike me as at odds with standard AF practice. If you're determined to see the AF as over-ranked, then I doubt I can dissuade you. I'd just point out that at locations which also host a headquarters, Air Operations Center or some-such senior staff or support organization, you will see a disproportionate number of higher ranks on base for obvious reasons. Combat zones also tend to get more rank in an effort to push as many experienced people forward as possible and, as I pointed out, flying wings always have a lot of officers because almost all the aircrew operating those $50M+ aircraft are officers. Finally, I can say that during my time as a junior officer supervising several hundred people, I had full authority and responsibility to make any necessary decisions and would have been quickly relieved if I routinely went to my field grade chain for "permission" to do my job...... <shrug>