> for folks in management roles, the opportunity to 'score' engineers based on Agile metrics is too attractive.

One nice thing about this is that the metric is visible. Then you can optimise your performance against it. Is this necessarily productive, or in the real interests of the company? Maybe, maybe not. But I look at this as a kind of a favour: if your boss is complaining "velocity is too low" well, at least you know what you're being measured by. Put some extra points on those stories. Undercommit. Make your boss happy and get them off your back. You'll be doing the same work either way.