There's also the element of artistic risk. Creators don't start designing something with the intent of it being bad. They make decisions on what they hope guests will enjoy and what will work best for their vision. On paper, Fast and the Furious works extremely well as a screen based attraction. Screens allow you to use celebrities, simulate speed, create scale and depth, and present something "chaotic" without complicated mechanics the require extensive maintenance costs. Flight of Passage, Back to the Future, Spiderman, and Transformers all work as a screens for the same reasons Fast and the Furious works as a screen.
A "party bus" ride vehicle fits the world of F&F narratively and can help increase capacity. Leveraging the loop with screens saves space and prevents the complicated build of going over the Hogwarts Express. Cheesy writing and over the top ridiculous fit the F&F production. Replacing an expensive, aging, less popular attraction with the franchise and intended ride system makes financial sense, and fits the thematic space of San Francisco.
Basically, each independent decision makes logical, creative, and operational sense. Sometimes though, each "right" decision just comes together in the wrong way. It's easy to armchair imagineer those failures, but chances are, if you were in the same position, you would have made the same decisions.
Not too long ago I read an interview with a film director who made a "bad movie" (I don't remember who it was or which movie they were talking about). They were asked, "How does this happen?" The answer was enlightening, and amounted to - "There are so many moving parts in a production, and every decision is made in order to achieve something that has never been seen before. We want it to be good. But sometimes, for whatever reason, it just isn't. And there's no way to tell if it's good or not until you start seeing the final edit come together."
Frankly, I think that's what happened with F&F. All the independent decisions were "correct." They just didn't come together. And with theme park attractions, like movies, sometimes you can't tell if something is good or not until it's too late.