not sure how I'd've ever justified suggesting engineering standup without our engineering manager present
In the companies I work at we can create whatever ceremony our team deems nessesary as long as we're meeting our metrics.
The CEO or someone high up the food chain sees a defect and now zomg the sky is falling. It has to be fixed nao, prioritization be damned. That's what I meant by nobody from the above list can be a product owner. The whole point of having sprints is so things can't be added to a sprint mid-sprint. Maybe there are extenuating circumstances but they should a. really be extenuating circumstances and b. should come through the (clearly nominal) product owner.
"Empowered to meet metrics" still doesn't sound like a very enlightened philosophy to me.