I’m unsure if how many layers deep alone is a good indicator of if it’s an immoral maze.
I once worked with a company that had 50 employees and the hierarchy was five people deep. I once worked in a company with 10,000 employees and the hierarchy was six deep.
The larger company with one more layer was much better.
Yes, the number of levels needs to be normalized by the size of the org (although probably some log of the size, it should not grow linearly, following the nature of an org tree). If one manager has around 5 direct reports on average, you need seven levels to span 80K employees. If a single manager has 10 direct reports you still need five levels to reach 100K (though I doubt there is a single 100K+ employee company that is only five levels deep)
There is probably some room for differentiation between a purely personnel layer and a product layer. If you have 5 people, you need someone who can provide a room and some computers. If you have 500 people, you need a layer that can provision a building. Personnel wise it makes sense to have another layer -- but it doesn't follow that the product itself needs another approval layer.
I once worked with a company that had 50 employees and the hierarchy was five people deep. I once worked in a company with 10,000 employees and the hierarchy was six deep.
The larger company with one more layer was much better.