Agreed. (Assuming you mean "create" as in write, as distinct from create as in get funded.)
>> If people are judgemental around what stories are left uncompleted or points / week then the situation can become stressful for no benefit to anyone.
Clearly no stress is better. But these things create stress in the other direction too. Slower than expected progress, the existence of "intractable problems", work going unfinished creates significant stress up the ladder.
In a perfect world the dev team is given a perfect spec, and a reasonable time to do it in, and after being "left alone" they deliver the finished product on time.
Given that that world doesn't exist, given that the "money we're spending" may turn out to be completely wasted (because the spec was wrong, or because the problem us much harder than anticipated), the ideal case seems unlikely to happen.
I say this not as a defense of crappy management processes, or even less as a defense of crappy managers, but rather in the spirit that understanding the problem goes a long way to solving it.
And yes, many places have bad processes and bad middle managers. I don't envy you that. But finding a way to better solve the manager's problem typically improves the relationship.