Does it really matter if it is a Task or Subtask? I think that kind of focus on the words is why people start hating Jira instead of trying to fix what matters.

Does it really matter if it is a Task or Subtask? I think that kind of focus on the words is why people start hating Jira instead of trying to fix what matters. JIRA is a bug tracker -- it has "summary", "description", "assignee", "status", and "a bunch of fields only management cares about". So deal with it as you'd deal with any other buggy software. If subtasks cannot be used, make a bunch of new tasks and set it as a blocker of the "final" task. If setting blockers is buggy, start putting comments in the title ("Big task [1/3]: Refactor foo", "Big task [2/3]: Add bar to foo"). Now, perhaps the real problem is then you are not allowed to add/change the tickets at all, only middle management can? It is a huge problem indeed, and I fully agree that this can ruin your life. But this is not JIRA's problem -- your management could do the same thing even you have switched to sticky notes attached to your wall.