Yes, an admin can certainly just disable the approval system, but that event should be logged too :-). I would expect though, that with approvals in place an admin requesting a change would need approval as well. Perhaps a setting that allows or denys any user from approving their own requests. That should be something you can enable or disable- not all shops would require that although we would want it here.
I think most enterprise customers are going to push for more and more logging, more checks and balances. We have to have those, particularly with NCM, since so much of what it is used for can and does end up in an audit at one time or another. The ability to disable those checks- logged of course- should be there too. Nothings more frustrating than finding a new feature that you have no ability to influence.