I think there is a misunderstanding on how the commissions work and how insurance companies work.
The insurance industry is typically in the upper echelon based on return metrics (ROE, ROI, etc.), but that's not to say that they invest all of their money in traditional investments (just like banks don't simply invest money to make profits - they loan it to other patrons, sell their mortgages, etc.). In fact, insurance is one of the larger players on the secondary market, so by their simple existence they do indeed have investments that us as individuals cannot invest in (but don't only make their money in this manner). However, they make money off of people who buy policies, loaning their money, and investing (the float). Think about it - if your principle job is to be the life insurance company, you need to generate enough in policy fees and have a large enough pool of people so that you don't pay out all of your money upon death.
The cost to insure you does not increase every year from the cost of the insurer. The cost for you to buy insurance at a later time will most certainly go up. The cost for the insurer to insure you is when you buy the policy. Hence the actuaries, and why they set the cost for your policy as they do. They've covered their costs with you buying the policy and the many other policy holders. Annual premiums being set for a whole life insurance policy for perpetuity fails to understand the mathematics. I'm not sure why this would make you think that a life insurance agent is lying to you, it is a fact.
There are commissions for all types of insurance. Term insurance has commissions, and whole life has commissions. You factor this part of it in when you are considering different companies and products. Same like buying a car or buying a house. Whole life will be a more expensive type of policy than a term policy, and is rife with fees. However, as it ages it's perhaps not as bad as you might think. They tend to front-load the commissions, and the residuals into the future are nearly non-existent (see the example the OP laid out).