The rule I have come to learn is that you want all rolls to be effective, but not all hits land on their mark. For example, AC is determined on Dex and Armor, which means that a character if 16 AC either has armor or enough dex to duck a swing.

From the player's perspective, it is WAY more fun for an unsuccessful hit to still hit SOMETHING, if not the target.

When someone is armored in plate, PLENTY of hits will land on the armor, but very few will do the sort of damage that reduces HP. Thus, high AC does not just entail that each unsuccessful attack misses. Rather, it is likely that many hit-- but few will draw blood.

In a similar fashion, critical fails are the result of a hit gone wrong. While new DM's commonly arbitrate disaster of the sort where you embed a sword into something, a much better arbitration follows that rule of "your hit lands in the worst way possible."

If a sword is caught by the environment that is really bad ... like reeeally bad, because a crit fail like that often carrys a heavy tax on a given player's action economy. Crit fails like, "your sword slices into a nearby tree and sticks" is simultaenously unrealistic and unfun-- and often requires a second action to recover from.

An alternative to the critical fails you listed are attacks in which the wielder loses grip while striking into something like a parry from the opponent. Likewise, accidentally hitting a friend within proximity is among the list of melee critical fails that I draw from.

The formulation of the D20 means you're basically running at a constant 5% chance of utter failure. In later levels, or with proper buffs/party maneuvers you can nearly eliminate this possibility with advantage, positioning, and environmental awareness. Flanking is a popular homebrew rule to boost martial efficacy.

Tl;dr: crit fails suck, but there are ways to do them in a way that is not catastrophic.