I'm not going to lie, DCA 1.0 was pretty bad from the jump, and they knew it. It was practically Plan C, but at the end of the day, Eisner wanted to take Disneyland from a mainly local park and turn it into a resort where people would want to stay for several days, so we ended up with what we got (DCA 1.0, Downtown Disney, The Grand Californian and ownership of The Disneyland Hotel). Paired with Pressler, Harriss, and the rest of the consumer based executives that were then in charge of the theme park side at the time, it's no wonder DCA turned out the way it did. We should be thankful some of their other proposed ideas never happened.
I would say the opposite about Cars Land though. It was first part of that park that felt like Disney actually let their creative team work. The interesting thing about the entire evolution of Cars Land was it was mainly greenlit not only because of how popular the film franchise was, but due to the merchandising capability of it. This was something that the former executive team couldn't figure out how to do. The guests ended up getting an insanely detailed land, with a few good flat rides and a really good E-Ticket and the company got a land that helped continue to drive marketing sales. Paired with the Buena Vista Street update, it also helped legitimize DCA as a park that was up to the "Disney standard".
I think the 60th anniversary was the beginning of the tipping point for most of the other issues you mentioned, but the pandemic felt like the final nail for how things seem to be run, operationally at least.