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I would say X was success. It could be modernized via extensions, while maintaining backwards compatibility and providing network transparency. And it still works well, while the the replacement which was said to have a much cleaner design and which is under development for 15 years still causes problems and has many limitations.

I also disagree that the client/server design is a problem. Modern graphics hardware is remote from the CPU for all intents and purposes. So remote buffer manipulations protocol is exactly what is needed.

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Before a few days ago, I had never used Wayland. As you said, it causes problems and has many limitations. The solution that works is infinitely preferable to the one that doesn't.

But, a few days ago, I finally switched over, on a modern machine (~ 6 months old), with a modern OS (more than modern -- I'm running a pre-release version). And now, finally, I see what all the fuss is about. Wayland is absolutely beautiful. The rendering and animations are gorgeous, and so so smooth. The whole system is far faster, far more robust, and far more efficient both in computing resources and workflow than anything I was ever able to achieve on X.

I have been using Linux on X11 displays as my primary machine since 1996. I do development work, but not with graphics, where I'm just a regular user. I don't really care about how good the design is or how hard it is to write programs using X / Wayland / whatever. All I care about is how usable my system is. And for me, having reached the Wayland promised land, I now understand what I was missing with X, in a way that I could never have before.

Tear-free rendering, all the time, every time. Frame perfect windows, all the time, every time. A desktop that finally feels immediately responsive, all the time, every time. Under X11, all those round trips to and from the X server add milliseconds to response time, hard to benchmark, but very easy to feel. Worse yet, X11 responsiveness is variable. If the system is loaded, your desktop can lag so badly under X. This doesn't happen with Wayland.

I now have OSD volume controls that work even when the screen is locked. This was never possible with X, and can never be possible.

I now have a lockscreen that, guaranteed, will not leave my desktop unlocked if someone crashes it by feeding it malicious input. X11 is architecturally incapable of providing such guarantees. There were several instances of security bugs where lock screens in X11 crashed in exactly this way.

Wayland has now reached the point where it is a must-have for me. If it doesn't run Wayland, I won't buy it, and I won't install it. Yes, X11 works well after all these years, but Wayland is enjoyable to use in a way that X11 never was.