I read the whole Culture Critic thread and this was a very interesting point. Now, I'm a Canadian, and our government still has an appointed (aristocratic) senate, and they are basically lifetime appointments.
It's always been the true conservatives (Preston Manning, prime example) who have pushed for changing our constitution to make our senators elected. I think as long as you have corrupt people making the appointments, you will get corrupt appointees. Until you root out the corruption, it doesn't matter what kind of government you have. And what corrupt government would ever decide to root out corruption?