I'm not really convinced that the answer to "Neither A or B work" is "Try something in the middle," especially because in this case I'm not convinced capitalism

I'm not really convinced that the answer to "Neither A or B work" is "Try something in the middle," especially because in this case I'm not convinced capitalism and communism are our endpoints and it's a one-dimensional space. If you're having trouble with Automake and having trouble with CMake, the answer is almost certainly not to use parts of Automake and parts of CMake. A much better strategy is to read go read Automake docs carefully and make sure you're doing it right (inspired, perhaps, by people who say "You're doing Automake wrong" but not taking them at face value) and see if you can get it to work; go do the same with CMake; and if neither works, go look for something completely different. Maybe Bazel. Or start figuring out where Automake and CMake are falling short and how to improve them - not how to use them better, but how to build new versions of them that actually work.