Or were the Gotti/Gravano faction simply a bunch of overly greedy punks with no foresight who should've been whacked?

I ask because you look at Paul's tenure, and all the power Carlo had left to him only became greater under Paul. The Gambinos were doing business as far away as the Middle East with the car theft operation; under Paul they had basically become a multinational criminal empire. Paul was also able to neutralize the Westies - who had given the Families a headache in the 70s - and make them into vassals who did his dirty work. I look at Paul as something akin to a Roman Emperor.

Every issue that dogged his tenure can directly be traced back to the Bergin Crew. If Willy Boy Johnson wasn't a rat, the Feds wouldn't have gotten the layout to Angiee Ruggiero's home; If they didn't get access to his home, no bug which detailed the layout of Paul's home; No Angie bug, no Paul bug; no 1985 tape crisis; and Paul possibly escapes the Commission trial. All of his problems stemmed back to that one crew.

And Gravano? Gravano was a greedy fuck who whacked out all his friends just so he could take their businesses, who never did any time in the can and who ratted as soon as he faced a prison sentence.

While they still exist, the Gambinos have never truly recovered from the Gotti/Gravano regime, and OC as a whole has never recovered from Gravano's defection.

So in retrospect, was Paul really that bad of a Boss?