It's true they're difficult to do well, but there's just as many problems with not having standups. Engineers get stuck and don't ask for help in a timely fashi

It's true they're difficult to do well, but there's just as many problems with not having standups. Engineers get stuck and don't ask for help in a timely fashion, projects slowly slip and no one raises it, people start reproducing work someone else has already worked on, people find blockers but they aren't highlighted to everyone to get it fixed etc. etc. etc. And often those problems are more convenient problems to have for the engineers but impact the business badly. The key is being intentional about your process, no matter what that process is. If you can put in place strategies to solve all the problems standups are meant to solve, that's great, but the standups weren't originally designed by middle management, they were designed by engineers for a purpose.