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'its all-but-stated goal of penetrating the lower-income market in the developing world'

This is where the fiction lies. You actually don't know what the goal was, but with a statement like this you can manufacture one that hasn't been met.

I think the 5C is part of a strategy that will ultimately allow Apple to address a larger market, but the goal of the 5C was not to cause that to occur immediately, but rather to conservatively introduce a second iPhone without destabilizing the whole product line.

If you consider the number of elements needed to make that happen: new design, new manufacturing, carrier agreements, marketing, etc, the goal here was to establish this second apparatus in a controlled manner. This is why the 5c internals are essentially the same as the 5 - i.e. the engineering element of the strategy is unchanged from before.

The 5c is the beginning point of the strategy, not the end.

The only people who think that the 5c was a disappointment, are those who think slashing prices is a 'strategy'.