I wrote a lot but decided not to send it because the majority of it was unrelated to the overall discussion in this thread. I will simply say that our CTO, CEO, and Director of IT are all aligned and will frequently push back when other departments do stuff like this. Due to this attitude and pushback, this is the only job in my entire career where I feel upper management actually cares about our time, and I am not alone in that as I have learned after some recent discussions at work.
People can call it gatekeeping, but having a conversation with IT before a purchase is all that’s required. That is not too much to ask for ANYONE. Just COMMUNICATE.