The rocket ahead folks are often really good at creating technical debt for everyone else. The minority who are really rockets usually burn out early in their career. Used correctly, Agile prevents too much of either type from getting out of control, evening out the peaks and valleys. That's what you want, right? A sustainable pace.
Well said. I've never really looked at it from that perspective, tbh. But you're right, the sprint will keep effort at a sustained pace that the team accepts.
Scrumerfall adopted the term "sprint" so of course it's wrong. Before Scrum was much, we used the term "iteration" which is far more descriptive and truthful.