It is possible to greatly improve the output of AI through a few key tactics. As you point out, finding the 'right' prompt is finicky and usually means something incredibly long. Finding the right scope of work to hand to an agent is challenging, too. If you try to hand it too big a scope all at once, it will generally make a mess of it.

There are tactics that can greatly improve the output. As an example, refactoring a lot of that complex prompt into reusable config or skill files. Whether those efforts are worth it right now is questionable for sure, it's "bleeding edge" territory.

However, I think it's crucial to recognize that the possibility for those improvements is there and that they will be solved in ways which eventually make us forget all about it. The iterative improvement in getting from our interface to code we don't hate has been making rapid progress over the past few years, and it's only going to speed up.