Software development can get political in ways that individual contributors don't foresee or even cognitively understand. There is often no established metrics for how fast a department is supposed to work. Managers engaged in department building need to manage expectations for how much work is going to get released.

Working too fast in these situations can and will cause cohesion problems. In this situation, if you have a fix for something that will save weeks of work, don't take a sniff test of the general atmosphere, and just charge forward guns blazing, you will make yourself an organizational pariah.

The easiest way to tell if you're in this situation is to get in a closed door meeting with your middle manager and explain the difference between what people believe about the situation and the actual situation. Maybe even do the work first so you have some solid proof that you're right.

Your manager will know the political atmosphere and how to navigate it better than you will. In most cases, he'll give you political cover to implement your fix and because it's coming from on high, you won't get resented for it.

Of course, if this starts happening a lot, then you need to have more discussions with that manager about a promotion.