After a bit of discussion with other people who may have more understanding on how we sort of have Azure DevOps set up, I think I ran afoul of something that I can't even see. It's an odd situation, and not one that is worth explaining all the intricacies and politics around the way this thing is set up, but the bottom line is that nobody I work with, or even in my organization, is in control of how this was/is set up. I've found an acceptable workaround, but it's just that. The situation is too bizarre to be fully manageable. Settings like policies can be changed without notice, accountability, or transparency. I think that happened, it's just too opaque to be sure.