At what echelon, if any, does professional ability outweigh operational experience?

Professional ability outweighs operational experience most of the time, especially at senior management positions. The job of a senior manager, such as a SGM, is not necessarily to be an expert with dense operational experience but to be able to manage a group of experts.

I think highly technical jobs are fields where operational experience becomes more important. A good example of this is the long residency that doctors have to conduct after medical school. Doctors have a lot of professional ability right out of medical school, but they are required to gain operational experience prior to final certification.

Last point, and pardon the cynicism, the very last thing anyone should be judged on is their military awards. We all know there were multiple standards for CIB/CAB/CAR during the war. Units received them in entirety for a platoon in contact, some units only gave them to soldiers that fired their rifle, does IDF count or not...etc. Furthermore, an E6 and below would very seldom receive a BSM regardless of whether or not their work was worthy of the BSM their E7 counterpart earned. There is a considerable amount of interpretation regarding awards from Commander to Commander and unit to unit to take them to seriously in the Military.

For this particular topic, the complaint is that the Sergeant Major doesn't have a Combat Action Ribbon, which is very similar to the Army's CIB/CAB.

I would argue that not having a CIB/CAB/CAR does not mean one does not have operational experience. It may mean one does not have tactical combat experience. However, is a CIB/CAB necessary for somebody to become SMA? What if they have been at the Division and Corps level commands for the last years and just didn't get shot at during any of their convoys? Does that really mean they are any less prepared? I would say no.

A CIB/CAB/CAR is awarded to a lot of people, and just that award by itself, does not tell me much about a person's experience, other than they were perhaps in a certain unit at a certain time.

My short answer to your question is that for me, professional ability outweighs perceived operational experience at all echelons. I rather have a squared away platoon sergeant than a mediocre one who has a right shoulder patch.