"Extreme Programming, the mother of all agile processes?"

Indeed it was, but XP is actually the opposite of the Manifesto. XP was (is) about extremes - one size fits all, everyone work the same way. The Manifesto was about balance and personal agency: it begins with "Individuals..." - not "the team".

I agree we should get rid of sprint backlogs: I believe we should get rid of sprints. In fact, forget Scrum: its practices are almost anti-patterns for how to accomplish the things intended (retrospection, collaboration, leadership, ...)

BTW, the wisdom of the crowds is a myth. The McDonalds hamburger is the most popular, but not the best. This paper explains the source of group intelligence: it manifests when there is good discussion that is inclusive; unfortunately in a group that is self-organized, a few tend to dominate: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1193147

And forget the sprint goal. Forget sprints! A team does not usually all have a single micro goal. Only the macro goal is shared. As you say, our goal should be a direction instead of a place. Let the individuals work individually, and let them _decide_ when to collaborate - don't force everyone to collaborate on the same thing by imposing a sprint goal.

E.g., the last time I was a team member (not a lead or coach), I was tasked with developing the performance testing system that we ran every night. My list of to-dos was different from the person next to me. It would have made no sense to have a sprint goal.