I think you're underselling this. You're right that malice is relatively rare. Ambiguity, however, is the norm.
For example, say you have a quick discussion and decide you will do task X and your colleague will do related task Y. You nod and head off to work. For most people, this feels like a commitment but if they haven't explicitly promised a deadline then there's no assumption of when it'll be done. So it might actually never be done, and whatever commitment has been made is super weak.
But then: you write an email "Thanks for the chat. I'll do X this week and you'll follow up with Y in time to ship by Thursday the 11th". By getting explicit about the timing you're really asking them, in a specific but not confrontational way, to seriously consider the timing portion of the implied commitment. Maybe they're super swamped with something else and assumed you'd be OK waiting? Maybe the work is more complicated than you realized and will take longer?
For most people, in most work environments, these kinds of ambiguous commitments are more common than clear, thoughtful ones. But anyone in an interaction can help steer it toward clearer commitments, and this is frequently very valuable. It's valuable to you because you know what you can really expect from others (or if they let you down, you know the difference between them failing to magically read your mind vs. do what they promised). It's valuable to others (as long as you're not a jerk about it) because it'll help clarify misunderstandings before they become a bigger problem.
