> who the hell these days gets The Spec as a well-formed document?

The PMs asked ChatGPT to write a well-formed spec.

Sadly, true in too many companies right now.

I do agree with your general point that The Spec can become a crutch for washing your hands of any responsibility for knowing the product, the goals, the company's business, and other contexts. I like to defuse these ideas by reminding the engineers that The Spec is a living document and they are partially responsible for it, too. Once everyone learns that The Spec isn't a crutch for shifting all blame to the product manager, they become more involved in making sure it's right.