Of course they do, and nobody is saying the GM needs to do all of the scouting all by themselves. But in the end, it's up to the GM to be making the final decision on all personnel matters, which means evaluating all aspects of the decision, starting with talent evaluation and weighing it amongst many other factors. The GM needs to be able to do that himself, as a pro scout could give less of a sh*t about the salary cap implications, or a college scout about your current roster makeup, because that's not their jobs. So if a GM needs to weigh all of these factors, it stands to reason that they need a solid understanding of all of these areas to make an informed decision, and can't be blindly counting on their scouting department to figure it out for them. In the end, the one thing we all can look at is these guys' backgrounds and for someone like Khan there's nothing there to suggest he'll be able to provide much of his own insight when it comes to talent evaluation, which ultimately brings into question how capable that will make him of weighing that, which is ultimately the most important factor, against the other areas that he does have experience in.
Khan could be great or he could be horrible. He's young, but he's also been more of a accountant. Plus teams that really value certain young individuals probably try to keep them around. If somebody is as good as everybody claims, nobody would want to let that person go. If a GM knows a couple of assistants and scouts are the real reason they are so great, you probably try and keep those people close. You give them a raise. You convince them to stick around. You question their desire to go to another organization. You tell them the other organization is not run well.. Etc etc etc. And The Steelers are an organization that tends to keep people around for life.
It's like any other job and corporation. We know little about what these individuals really did and press releases and blurbs are press releases and BS. If you've worked in any capacity in the real world, most of the blurbs are full of crap. I imagine some other assistant in Pittsburgh or Seattle are looking at what's written and rolling their eyes. Some of it's probably true. Some of it is fabricated embellishments. Nobody would have a press release or blurb that states, "So and so sat in the back and spent more time watching youtube than scouting players."
In the end, I think I'm more worried that Khan seems to be a guy the Steelers could care less about holding onto.