Yet engineers are pushed to give unknowable estimates of points and when things take "longer" (did you notice that shift right there?) they are either overdue, taking too long, or they don't, and to say: "It takes as long as it takes." is not accepted by middle management.

That's a strawman. It is not really related to the main point and I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make (maybe that tension exists?)

Obviously things take as long as they take. I've always been an educator of this back to the business leadership. In my experience, most business people truly have no freaking clue how a product gets built and code gets shipped.

Giving proactive updates (meaning not the day it was expected to be done according to last update) are important part of a professionals working life. There's always a tension between business and engineers. Engineers just generally don't do that well with tension and try to minimize it, or complain about it.