I think literal meaning here is misinterpreted as sincerity by OP. Which is a misconception, literal things can be untruthful and abstract things can be truthful as well, being abstract, or going in a roundabout way is not necessarily about being dishonest.
I think the OP is pointing out the lack of depth in the writing. Sincerity isn't about using language at or below 2nd grade, sincerity can be expressed with any level of verbosity. I think the trend of dialog being over-simplified to the point of literal noun-verb-noun with no metaphor just makes everything taste like plain white bread and velveeta. That's great: if your tastes are pedestrian, but there's nothing elitist or insincere about wanting greater depth from art. Ironically the screenwriters that utilize this richness of language are rarely blockbusters or award winners.
what if that one person quits suddenly because they're not getting paid enough, wants to move to a different country, etc?
> For example, if you ask a team "can you get this feature in", likely they will come back at you a few weeks later.
feature not a bug etc. they should already have and know their priorities and if yours doesn't trump theirs, there's no reason you should get a concrete answer.
that does work in smaller places, but there are many reasons and many books about exactly why this does not scale or work at most organizations.
> I'm being a bit vague, but all I can say is that I've seen this before, and I'll know it when I see it again.
being vague does not work when talking about organizational design so telling people that they don't need to build teams around systems is a bit irresponsible
(Counterexample: "Sorry, Baby", which literally just came out.)