I agree with most of what you say. I am also frustrated with a small impact and friction. However, how do you want to fix the car from the inside, if you do not know what kind of car you need to create? Because it is not about repairing a broken car, it is about a car-type switch. You have had an old space wagon, and now you need a sedan, van, or muscle car, given the circumstances which you do not know.

Last week I visited 10 companies in 3 countries, sizes between 30 -250, all are basically software houses, all on the market for 25+ years, working on projects internationally. Almost all have had in their top management of the former developers who have got promoted. None of them have had a business plan, vision, financial plan, or strategy for what they want to achieve and where they are going. None of them has a response to your dev questions, like what solutions we will build, what skills we need, how many people we need, what is the best process or technology for us, how to develop people and build human capital, what type of customer we can expect next 6-12-18 months. They all do decisions stochastically, based on their gut feeling of the moment. How do you want to fix something from the position of a frustrated developer in such a setup?

ps: They were doing the same before Agile. I sometimes believe the best is to quit companies with childish or amateur management so they will struggle to move forward if they do not fix management.

ps2: keep writing, your tech perspective is refreshing. I mostly agree with you in this.