Do these people not know that by requiring obscenely complex passwords from a predominantly over-45 workforce they are in fact making their system less secure?

Seriously. You need to keep track of a dozen passwords that have to be different, have very strict requirements, constantly change at different intervals, and you can't use a password manager

People are just going to write them down

yup. there's so much i hate about modern 'best practices' around passwords

The guy who came up with the guidelines admitted that it was a huge mistake

He admitted that the password requirements made it so difficult for people to remember their passwords that it made it easier to steal them because of people writing them down