This is awesome. As a whole, I feel that structure is a way for us to think about detail and scope of work.

At the end of the day, a story has a beginning and end. How can we make it better? Ah! Put a middle. Now how can we make it better? Ah! Develop the beginning so it has more "beats." We can keep going and plot out a mad 16 series book!

I do 10000000% agree with you that the three act structure doesn't hold out hand. It does leave us free to write what we wish, and it does offer a pretty good place to start in the ambition of writing.