Is there a team that works truly productive and happy via an agile (scrum) workflow?

Or does it always distill down to an excuse for a chaotic workflow?

My experience and cynic nature has let me to assume the latter.

(That being said, I never had a dedicated scrum master to work with. So that may be the first of many problems.)

There is many factors contributing to the mishmash implementation of scrum, as per my experience no company is following the principles in the manifesto 100% and has all roles filled. An excuse is always in place because A, B or C but at the end of the day if these simple principles are not followed, then no wonder why entire workflow is broken, unproductive and frustrating for everyone in the chain. Again from experience the more you follow the principles and everyone knows its place and responsibility the better.

My last 2 cents: Nothing is perfect at the end of the day

Scrum, when implemented correctly, is awesome. The problem is that usually people don't implement anything and call it Scrum (or Agile).

Well I was part of such a team. You would've loved visiting us. I certainly loved being part of it.

But, like I wrote elsewhere, such teams are naturally unstable. It took a few dismissive managers ("what do *you* know about business, you're just developers") and a new Hitler team lead ("now that I'm here, *I* am making the decisions. Fuck your autonomy.") and suddenly three devs quit, two others get transferred elsewhere, two of the girls go on pregnancy leave and don't return, and all that's left is two juniors and two seniors with an "idc fuck off" attitude. And management still is (acts?) clueless why work satisfaction and productivity just doesn't stop spiraling downwards.

I don't work there anymore so I wouldn't know if things improved, but I guess not.

My team is using scrum and we're happy if it. There are frictions, but they are manageable. If you have problems, perhaps you should hire a coach to work with you for a while? In teams with history it's difficult to implement new methodology or enforce existing one when people rely on other relationships. It's easier for someone external to say "hold on for a minute, actually you can't do that".