Sure, and to the degree that they do, they can't be accurately estimated either. ... Even if the words people are saying sound like "We want to build this; how

Sure, and to the degree that they do, they can't be accurately estimated either. ... Even if the words people are saying sound like "We want to build this; how long will it take?", the process which actually happens is "We have this much money/time, and we want to solve this problem; what can we build in the time available?" To the degree that people believe they are operating in the former mode, sadness happens, because software engineering is actually about the latter.