NYT Article Criticising Secondaries Exit

nvestors Warn of ‘Rot in Private Equity’ as Funds Strike Circular Deals

Very important concerns raised in the article, in my very rookie opinion as an AN1 in IB. I remember a wso discussion from a few weeks ago raising similar concerns. What does the PE community think? Particularly I have two questions? (Hope they make sense)

1) Is this more visible from low tier funds that entered the PE markets around the pandemic boom in PE activity and now are struggling to exit as they relied on financial engineering while majority of PE returns in the past decade have come from operational improvements?

2) What are the long-term implications of secondary exits and does this create a major risk that we aren't factoring in yet?

Please correct me if the questions do not make sense.