However, I agree with your assessment that things look Grim. From the day Rick Perry sat on top of the heap, and it looked like ROmney was going to be an afterthought, nothing good has come of this process. Good candidates and bad candidates climbed to the top, only to be torn down.
Gingrich appeared to be the last man standing, but he too flew brightly and then flamed out and crashed to the ground.
Santorum was the sole candidate to get a 2nd chance of sorts, but he was unacceptable apparently to conservatives, who wanted so badly for the electorate to love Gingrich again. Unfortunately, while they succeeded in bringing Santorum back down to earth, so far there is little to indicate that any of that support has gone back to Gingrich.
Instead, Gingrich has a sting of 3rd and 4th-place finishes. Forget asking when the last time is he beat Romney -- when is the last time he beat ANYBODY? (He beat Paul in Colorado by 1%). How often has he even been in the teens?
Here is a depressing map, showing 1st-place finishers by county: 
I think you can guess which colors are whose. Ron Paul features way too prominently in this map -- that's how bad our conservatives are doing, there are several states where Paul has come in 2nd place.