> A concrete example is Auto Layout... In practice, this locks the design in place and severely limits the possible expressions. You can’t drag things around freely or try odd combinations of layouts.

I'm a designer, I've used Figma since 2018, and this is incorrect. And not even incorrect in an "I feel differently, but I see what you mean" way. It's the opposite of correct. It's categorically wrong. Autolayout makes it easier to slap layouts together quickly, and change them quickly. The alternative is selecting the object and moving it with the arrows keys, which accomplishes the same thing but is slower, harder, less precise, and worse. It's not creatively empowering to manually align and space objects.

> “Ready for dev” implies that the creation is done and that the developer is merely there to execute the designer’s vision

Don't worry, no engineer I've ever worked with has shared your confusion.

"Ready for dev" is a work management trigger, like closing a ticket—or, more accurately, marking it ready for review. It doesn't mean anything except "this is ready for dev to look at and leave feedback". There is nothing about flagging a section as `ready for dev` that forces engineers to work on it as though it were canon law.