That is true to a point. I have known a lot of PhD’s and many are brilliant people. Many others though are, well, meh. Their “research” is on esoterica and published in magazines that only other PhD’s read, and I suspect the reason for their pursuit of a doctorate is so they can wear the title. Universities, unfortunately, are complicit in granting those people PhD’s because of the enormous amount of tuition money they get from PhD candidates. As for the classes, in order to get to the point of being in a doctoral program, you usually have a minimum of a masters degree, which is a lot of classes. Me? I have 18 semester credits beyond a masters. That was a lot of classes.