I disagree!
I'm not left hanging by the values in the Agile Manifesto; they ring true to me. Your re-wording is something very different. It doesn't standalone -- it's a comment on the original, and I think it misses the point.
You say: "For example (being tongue-in-cheek here), it wouldn’t matter as much if the team were to launch straight into coding without first eliciting some requirements from the customer. (This would, of course, be a recipe for disaster, quality staff or not)."
This doesn't sound like a recipe for disaster to me. Why shouldn't a team code up a proof of concept of a novel software product, then use this as a vehicle to elicit feedback?
You say: "To gain customer collaboration, you need to negotiate a contract first." I can collaborate with a customer without a contract in place.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
