Your experience is not about Scrum, but about a poorly implemented management: the process or tools proposed by Scrum (or Agile) is there to help the team, and

Your experience is not about Scrum, but about a poorly implemented management: the process or tools proposed by Scrum (or Agile) is there to help the team, and allow to do, make their magic, not to micro-manage and assign tasks. Your previous team clearly failed at it, or we should say it succeeded at using a trending keyword to make their own agenda. Your new team example doesn't seem much better to me: even-though the freedom you like is what should be, the lack of process can't work in any reasonable even middle-size team. The process is not about slowing you down or giving power to management: it should be there to help you as a team member keep the vision and target, and sharing. How would you know how to collaborate with others on the team if you don't have any way to know what they are doing or how would you improve your creativity if you don't have any feedback on what you are doing?