Perhaps I am overly optimistic in thinking this is just incompetence.

Well, maybe it is... but then the PM never prioritizes testing or fixing the problem. They're not intentionally trying to get more people to accept cookies, it's just that there are always more important features to build and fires to fight, and fixing the cookie banner won't move any of the metrics executives are breathing down their necks about, and it won't look good in the perf packet...

But of course, designing the system that pushes people to make this sort of decision was absolutely intentional.

So even when it's incompetence, it's still malicious, just in a way that obscures the explicit decision-making that led to the result.

Yes, you are. The legislative process around EPD/EPR fully anticipated the malicious compliance and it became a back-and-forth political football long before anything was passed. The legislators were never dumb and the corporations were always greedy+powerful.