[mindslight]

Yes - analysis of "just follow the rules harder" is generally wrong, which is why we've moved on to blameless postmortems. I agree with your criticism of the current state of the system. The problem is the lack of mechanisms that encourage convergence towards the desired state. Without them, divergence continually adds up, creating the well known ratchet effect. If Filburn itself had been decided differently, the Supreme Court would have eventually justified the federal government power grab at a later time. Slower progression would mean we'd be in a better state today, but we'd still be headed towards the same place.