You're all adults, so sort things out with the post-doc rather than go to the supervisor to settle things - I take this is your first real job? Learning how to deal with situations like this is all part and parcel of the apprenticeship.

You make a big thing about supervisors not being "qualified", but now you're changing tack. As a PhD student, once you are coming towards the end of your project you should know more than your supervisor about your topic. Don't you agree?
You also now divert onto the issue of supervisors being too busy. Again a totally different issue. Why?
I suspect that you're wanting to have a general multi-purpose whine, a pity party.

I agree with Dunham that general blandishments are not a good thing. Unfortunately, lots of people don't achieve their dreams, but I also think these decisions are down to the individual.

I'm fascinated at the response to the OP, in a good way. BTW has anyone found evidence for the existence of a European Ethic Commission?

Which publisher was it? There are certainly some academic publisher that aren't very helpful for ECRs. Others are much more supportive.

Well the thesis is still the responsibility of the PhD student. A supervisor isn't meant to be spoon-feeding the PhD candidate, only offering guidance where necessary.
Interesting that you only talk about science BTW.

It would have costed me about £200 to have a pro proof-read my thesis. Supervisor did super job, but actually your thesis is not going to fail on typos etc. Obviously make sure it meets minimum standards but clearly content the important thing.

There are lots of people who don't manage to get a PhD, who don't even get to university. As other posters have said, seek pastoral support from the university.

Think you've approached the issue very thoughtfully. I don't think it's vital to get published, just useful if you can. Personally I find it useful to switch between projects, but not everyone does.

Oh publication vital for the institutions' REF! Hence the bottleneck, which seems to make it much more difficult to publish at certain times. Guess there's no way round it without abolishing the REF (not a bad idea IMO). Don't quite understand this since my submission occurred AFTER the recent REF, but there you go! Lots of people missed the deadline? As you say, they can simply put it in a later issue, so it may simply be a courtesy to avoid a big delay for the authors.

The REF seems to really sabotage your chances of getting an article published at certain parts of the cycle, as everyone panics about their ratings. Anyone else had a letter saying 'your article is perfectly good, but due to REF we can't publish it'?

My supervisor didn't have a PhD, but was excellent. Like pekeboo, my supervisor had a light touch partly because that is what I was happy with (and I got on with things without having to be chivvied along!). I wouldn't get hung on on bits of paper personally.

Certainly not normal, and probably not even normal for academia ;)
As other responses alluded to, there may be other reasons for the reason, so best not to be too confrontational IMO.

I can believe that there might be over 1,000 applicants for a funded PhD to be honest. When there are so many talented applicants, the criteria on which they select will not simply be an excellent MSc etc. Same with grant applications. So difficult to them also.