>regardless of whether there is good code being written or successful product/market fit.

I don't think OP is suggesting that engineering is responsible for product/market fit but rather sprints and burndown charts provide some visibility and satisfaction that work is getting done (regardless of whether the code is clean and regardless of whether it is the work that ought to be getting worked on).

I take the OP to be pointing out the reason that agile gets adopted and it's short comings that get overlooked because it makes people feel good.

Clueless management is clueless. They often feel that nothing gets done without some visible artifact. Agile allows the dev/engineering team to help show the tasks and behind the scenes things that need to be done. Clueless management likes Agile for this visibility. But Agile doesn't necessarily ensure proper product/market fit, especially early on when the first sprints deal with architecture setup foundation code. Clueless management doesn't understand this (and it is managements job to ensure the dev team/engineering team is working on the correct solution).

That sounds like an indictment of clueless management, not of Agile.

Correct. And to that some would say that the latest agile craze and the large number of shops using agile is because of clueless management. It's not the miracle cure some people want it to be.