There's lots of ceremony if you do things as prescribed by the Agile experts. The process that I've seem implemented is actually very rigid when the manifesto is meant to allow teams to do what works best for them. I've met plenty of Agile consultants and trainers, and nearly always it's always people who haven't been software engineers. I'm a fan of Agile in general, but I do perceive a lot of time wasted in repetitive meetings. It becomes a management tool to "help" engineers when good ones are perfectly capable of organizing themselves.