Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat and hold several certifications, so I have a clear conflict of interest here
I agree with your analysis there regarding outdated and passable via brain-dumps, which is why I both respect and pursue Red Hat certs (before I went to work there). They are damn hard and there's no way to pass them unless you have practiced your ass off. The cert transcripts also specify exactly which version of the tech you took your exam on (e.g. RHEL 7 or Ansible v2.7), so an employer can see if your skills are outdated. IME they are well respected in the industry.
No test or cert if perfect of course, but they're not all equal IMHO.
Some certs like A+ are a game to get the candidate to memorize useless, obscure trivia that is found in someone's test prep materials.
The exploitative training/testing racket is all about creating a subscription-like dependency with planned obsolescence to get steady, easy money for more testing and more exams.
Thank the various gods for, back in the day: TestKing.
Good certifications which can be used in certain safety-critical tech jobs include the US state-by-state Professional Engineer license with a brutal and comprehensive exam process plus required work experience.
In general, better exams are free-form responses and/or a panel interview (if they still do that) like CCIE.
I agree with your analysis there regarding outdated and passable via brain-dumps, which is why I both respect and pursue Red Hat certs (before I went to work there). They are damn hard and there's no way to pass them unless you have practiced your ass off. The cert transcripts also specify exactly which version of the tech you took your exam on (e.g. RHEL 7 or Ansible v2.7), so an employer can see if your skills are outdated. IME they are well respected in the industry.
No test or cert if perfect of course, but they're not all equal IMHO.