What you're saying might apply to more formal hierarchies, e.g. in professional or academic contexts, but it's does not fully explain social life in general. For example, the same joke told by a more attractive person is perceived as funnier than by an unattractive person, so perceived wit (and likely also the perceived degree of "having figured things out") is actually modulated by physical traits.

The only context in which this becomes irrelevant is when selection is merely about cognitive and cooperative performance, or when it is merely transactional or strongly associated with some task or goal/necessity (as it might be the case in the experimental settings you are referring to).

it's clear that the classical strong man leader have not survived evolutionary and seems more of a modern mythology created around bronze age

I'd agree that competence hierarchies play a very important role and that mere dominance does not cut it, but the importance of physical traits has definitely not become negligible and it's certainly not a myth. Are you homeschooled by any chance, or did you attend a very strict/elitist school? The correlation between physical dominance/attractiveness and social/mating success is pretty obvious if you have any experience with typical adolescent males. A more attractive person will have a much easier time finding friends and will be higher up in the hierarchy on average. Of course that does not explain all of it, but likely 20-50%.

See, the problem I'm having with downplaying the blackpill is that when a socially excluded person tries to figure out why they are excluded, then there is a fair chance that it's simply due to their genes. If you deny that as a plausible explanation, then they're doomed to a life of regret, thinking it's entirely their fault. That's where I recognized the importance of the blackpill, even though it is of course a bit exaggerated.