I think failed is a bit harsh. What we do have is excellent when it works. They came up short in certain aspects of a vision.
No, I think failed is aporipriate considering that those cuts were made very shortly before release and in some cases likely not promoted by outside factors but likely because Larian wanted people to use the tadpole system for more powers and also otherwise not "burden" the player with bad consequences.
And if I remember right Sven still pretended there are consequences for tadpole use after they changed them to a powerup system and they knew there were none.
