Grad school happened. Is happening, in fact.
But yes. This is very depressing to say the least. The lack of accountability is appalling.
Plunder is the name of the game, both at the institutional and individual level. From the way things are going, I would say that the worst case you described is the most probable. The PAF might have come up with a high-tech spinoff of the DHAs - grab prime real estate, get the taxpayer to foot the bill for constructing fancy buildings and use it all for sustaining a large bunch of retired guys.
In the Western world, such a huge program would be presented before Parliament, the detailed deliverables and the plans for achieving them would have been examined and even 4-star generals would have received a dressing down if they had been unable to provide correct answers.
Here, the deliverables and projects will never be made public in the name of national security and we will just get occasional glimpses of these fancy models, graphics and logos with no idea of the level of success (import substitution, KHTT, HR skill development, design & manufacturing capability development, industrial offsets) that they were able to accomplish.
Alas, the ills that result in the absence of civilian supremacy.