Is this one of those things that is just never going to work? It seems like our system can't execute on things that are all-or-nothing. We shoot for the all, wa

Is this one of those things that is just never going to work? It seems like our system can't execute on things that are all-or-nothing. We shoot for the all, water it down with compromise, and then we're surprised when things fail. This happens in many situations, such as public transit. Build half a subway line so that it goes to nowhere and it fails, thus getting ridiculed as a failure from the start. How are we supposed to accomplish anything big or complex in this system?