> I would hazard a guess that the median ticket I deliver has been at least 15-20 minutes of total work from at least 2 or 3 people
Sure, for tickets that you deliver. But when we're talking about managing a backlog there might be 50 potential tickets that never get implemented (or even scoped) for every one that does. And you don't really want those to ever become a ticket at all because that ends up being far too much product work, precisely because it takes ~20 minutes for each ticket.
Put another way: you need a way to track high-level work for prioritisation before putting too much into scoping and detailing what implementing it would involve.
Sure, for tickets that you deliver. But when we're talking about managing a backlog there might be 50 potential tickets that never get implemented (or even scoped) for every one that does. And you don't really want those to ever become a ticket at all because that ends up being far too much product work, precisely because it takes ~20 minutes for each ticket.
Put another way: you need a way to track high-level work for prioritisation before putting too much into scoping and detailing what implementing it would involve.