I've begun to believe that all of this ceremony is driven from an unspoken belief that well functioning software teams are a myth.

sure it would be great if people raised issues themselves instead of skulking. were proactive, took pride in their work, engaged joyfully with their collaborators, and developed real consensus and velocity.

but that's just a fairy tale. developers are generally useless, stubborn, lazy, petty, and fundamentally disorganized. lets not shoot for the moon and try to get them to work together. lets just dumb the whole thing down to try to get _something_ out of them.