I don't think Kuhn was trying to show what ideal science "should be". His project was first and foremost descriptive. He was reacting against the likes of Poppe

I don't think Kuhn was trying to show what ideal science "should be". His project was first and foremost descriptive. He was reacting against the likes of Popper's view on what science is (and should be): namely, falsificationism. Kuhn argued that falsification is not how science normally works, despite the fact that actual scientists think it does. (He actually spends a whole chapter discussing why he thinks scientists make this mistake.) Kuhn's work inspired the Edinburgh school of sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), which until recently has remained quite heavy on the descriptive side.