I agree with your comment that getting feedback is different to making the final decision.
But I'm not sure the real problem fits solely in your two buckets.
I've been in recent situations where there is a less-technical person charged with making the "final decision" and a lot of other senior people in the room who don't all /have/ to agree. But the degree of "why not do it this way?" questioning+discussion will grow with the number of meeting participants (and/or worse, the # of meetings before a decision is made if it is not settled in one meeting and then new stakeholders arrive and have their own thrashing out to do.) And even with one final decider, you can end up a bit still with "Design By Committee" decisions when the final decider goes along with the group consensus or doesn't have a strong point of view on an issue.
But I'm not sure the real problem fits solely in your two buckets.
I've been in recent situations where there is a less-technical person charged with making the "final decision" and a lot of other senior people in the room who don't all /have/ to agree. But the degree of "why not do it this way?" questioning+discussion will grow with the number of meeting participants (and/or worse, the # of meetings before a decision is made if it is not settled in one meeting and then new stakeholders arrive and have their own thrashing out to do.) And even with one final decider, you can end up a bit still with "Design By Committee" decisions when the final decider goes along with the group consensus or doesn't have a strong point of view on an issue.