On the other hand it's very fortunate that the internet architecture is what it is, because the "dumb network, end-to-end protocols" design principle has enable

On the other hand it's very fortunate that the internet architecture is what it is, because the "dumb network, end-to-end protocols" design principle has enabled deployment of new and improved protocols and applications without touching the network routers, which would have been very difficult to coordinate. Might be difficult to believe now but this was a radical idea at the time. (Or at least enabled it for ~25 years until NAT put a damper on it - let's all keep our thumbs up for IPv6).