Very much agree with your analysis here. It's like many, many good ideas that have come up in SV (agile/scrum, OKRs, etc), when looked at as a useful tool for the individual that should be utilized on an individualized basis, they are incredibly useful. When made standard and forced into use-cases and personality types they don't work for, they can be mediocre or even counter-productive. They will also be used in ways not entirely desired, such as for self-promotion, self-justification, gaming things, etc. Managers also tend to get overly prescriptive about how to use the tool (usually a sentence that starts with, "here's how we do $TOOL at $COMPANY" is often heading there).

I've used OKRs, Kanban/agile and many other tools for me at an individual level and loved them. I've had the exact same tools at companies become a waste of time, a point of contention, and only be a "value add" for management.