At the end of the day, I do agree with you. My point wasn’t against the developers who acted like this and if they were right or wrong to do so. My point was about the fact that the knowledge barrier between developers ("R&D") and the upper management is frequently so tight that nobody is ever questioning those choices because let aside the "story points" the damn thing is costing, nobody understands what this is about and if it is necessary or not.

However, that’s just my personal experience, it’s possible that I’ve only seen the wrong kind of companies.