CMMI compliance - pay lip service better than not doing it at all?

Here's a scenario that I see way to often around the beltway: an organization is mandated to attain a certain CMMI maturity level - usually level 3, as part of a contractual requirement - usually involving goverment work. Because it is a contractual requirement, that organization usually makes it happen. They go through the pain of implementing a SEPG (software engineering process group), they install CMMI czars and institute the software process assessments and all that. On the project side, PMs are required to allocate resources to tailor their processes from the organizational standards and to maintain the paper trails proving compliance. Way too often this degenerates into a state where nobody really believes in the real business value of all this work, and everybody is paying lip service to it because it is 'required'.
Even in this scenario, I think that the organization and project themselves are better off than in a case where no attention is paid to standardizing and improving system engineering processes. CMMI compliance, even if done as a 'requirement', forces an organization and the project leaders to take a step back and evaluate, which is the very spirit of improving. On the project leader side, one might not like all the overhead, but by the very nature of being forced to minimize it, one becomes educated and efficient. I won't comment on the absolute business value of CMMI compliance - it is besides the point in this scenario since it is a contractual requirement. I do feel that projects can get something out of it, even if they don't like the overhead.