I work on an MCP server and I agree. There is no need to make MCP servers the gateway for agentic or programmatic integration - that's exactly what API servers handle out of the box. The value of MCP servers is fine-toothed access on a tool-by-tool basis and leaving output digestion to the LLM.

LLMs do GREAT utilizing well-defined tools to accomplish tasks. Look at Datadog's MCP, instead of figuring out a multitude of filter and navigation options your LLM can immediately navigate to what you want and extract the precise data you need. Tool instructions with defined I/O structures let LLMs fly.

But for a nightly cron job pulling down stats or something like that? Why the hell do you want to route through a protocol built for in-person consumption? This is such a pointless overreach for the protocol. What would have been better is blessing a standardized pattern for exporting any MCP tool definition into a well-structured API endpoint. Then everything related to API endpoints like doc generation, comes along for free.

Instead we get this kitchen sink protocol that is going headlong toward polyfill hell, since no two IDEs support the same protocol features like structured content, local state, elicitations, etc., even from the same provider - Claude Code/Desktop/web all handle MCP connections differently. It's a shitshow.

Almost every major MCP service uses the same baseline default features (plain context) rather than build around partially-supported features. Why add more and more specs on the pile when adoption is so far behind?