The biggest lesson I've ever had in cooking is that literally nothing is precise.
Measurements like "a pinch" (a pinch of salt) are the epitome, but even the ingredients themselves aren't precise and uniform.
Cooking becomes a lot easier and the food better when you throw out any and all notion of precision. The proper way to cook is grab some pot or pan, grab ingredients, throw them in, and cook.
Trying to make cooking precise is a fool's errand.
It really does matter when making bread that you get the yeast, water, flour, salt concentration exactly right, and you get the temperatures exactly within range.
It really matters when boiling sugar. You're not going to make toffee correctly without a working thermometer.
On the other hand, other doughs, cakes, etc are much more forgiving, and for the majority of home cooking that anyone is doing, you're quite right that it really calls for a reactive chef who is making things _to taste_, actively keeping track of their cooking, rather than someone hoping that if they follow instructions _precisely_, they'll achieve the outcome they're hoping for.
But if you're writing a recipe book for others, not just for yourself... readers would still like to know how _you_ make it, and that calls for at least a bit of precision in the measurements and times. Perhaps we should write recipes with margins of error?
sugar & salt is especially tricky because different vendors ship different concentrations in the crystals. morton's may have a different level of salty compared to whatever the store brand is, and that'll come through the food.
age of ingredients and quality also is yuge. the Bon Appetit crowd is using good stuff they bought fairly recently, not garlic powder that's old enough to graduate 5th grade. obvious concept, but it makes a serious difference.
source: ex did recipe development & food science for a major fast-packaged goods company.
Ah, I remember coming home from school one day when I was 16, and finding the kitchen filled with smoke. On the stove was a pan with a breaded piece of meat, burned to blackness. When I called out, my dad emerged from his office. Seeing me turning off the stove, he erupted: "Don't turn off the stove, the package said place frozen in pan and let it fry for 13 minutes!!!".
He had read the instructions, put the meat into the pan, turned to stove to full heat, set a timer to 13 minutes, and then returned to his office.
Well mostly. I weigh stuff when I make bread or emulsions (roux or mayonnaise e.g.). But even there, the variability between ingredients makes it all a hazy approximation.