>I view the daily standup as a way to communicate status to a Product Owner/Project Manager/SCRUM Master who may have to communicate status to a larger "Standup of Standups", if you will.

What's wrong with an email?

Or that work tracking system they spent all that time and money configuring.

Standups aren't supposed to be status reports. They're supposed to be huddles (to determine the plan of action). Want "status"? Look at the "xyz board". Blockers? That's important. Communicating any blockers that need to be addressed. That can be an email. And shouldn't have to wait until the next huddle. You can waste hours waiting. Communicate blockers immediately synchronously (interrupting) or asynchronously (noninterrupting, like email) depending on your work environments preferred or agreed upon protocols.

Perhaps not, but a 10-minute daily face-to-face status update isn't so bad. Some thing can't be clearly communicated via a project board. Blockers shouldn't wait until a standup, but a standup can be a useful failsafe. It means that a quick sync up happens at least once a day.