Y'all are prolly shitposting, but the reason they got someone like Hope instead of Clayton is because they know Clayton can pick a game apart in an instant and immediately find unintended loops and infinites. So he can expose the game for how broken it is and make them do extra work to fix it.
A lower level fake techlord like Hope or Yohosie or PatTheFlip can only do low level combos and will likely not find huge bugs in testing.

As such, because of the developer's ego and laziness, they're not willing to HUMBLE themselves and have their true flaws discovered by an actual techlord.

To quote Clayton himself, talent is hitting a target no one can reach. Genius is hitting a target no one else can see.