I'm reminded of the common argument that some proposed solution "works in theory", if only the practice could be sorted out. But the concept of things working

I'm reminded of the common argument that some proposed solution "works in theory", if only the practice could be sorted out. But the concept of things working or not working in theory is meaningless - whether something works or not is inherently a question of practice. Outside of execution, there is no way to assign value to a theoretical model.