The description of this Innovation says "have a[n] option to make it mandatory" so I think we're fine. Make it an option.
Some tasks don't need hours against them, so absolutely require it. Even if the Planner could turn it off, I wouldn't mind making them jump through that hoop to over-ride policy.
I would like to see this an option at the task level. Also would like to set it at the project or system level that "all new tasks set this required" so it's not just templated tasks that would have this set.
Thank you for your feedback. While we understand that some organizations would prefer to have an option to enable mandatory logging time against a task, unfortunately, this is not planned at this time.
Any chance of resurrecting this idea or would it need to be resubmitted? This is still an issue and it'd be a shame to lose the 126 Likes on this suggestion.