SCRUM and sprints lend themselves to "hamster-wheel management". That's an abuse, but it stilll gets labeled agile.
Pair programming is amazing. Provided no pair has a total dullard (or worst: two dullards!), pairing with rotation quickly results in every member of the team knowing the whole project, so that any team member can pick up the work of any other team member. It also levels-up the skills of the whole team. Even mediocre devs can become good devs by working side-by-side with someone really good.
On a per-task basis, I'm willing to grant that a pair might have lower velocity than two devs working alone. But the benefits of pairing with rotation for raising the standard of the whole team are striking.
[I'm not saying that all work should be done as pairs; as in everything you have to use common sense.]
