I think you are probably correct. The problem is that no one on "our" side is even seriously considering the question. All you get is moony love-odes to the founders, and to the Federalists, even though they were gravely mistaken about many things. Mixed sovereignty, the supreme judiciary, implied powers, etc.
All the way down to the grass roots, it is impossible for people to imagine a better system. They just rattle on absurdly about how great it would be "if only" people would follow the Constitution. As if everything that has occurred hasn't occurred under the Constitution.
We the people have allowed this to happen. The founders expected the people to be educated and throw out any politician that attempted to usurp the Constitution. Therefor there were no formal penalties for doing so. The states should have pushed back vigorously every time the feds tried to overstep their authority. Instead they slowly gave away more and more power. Now the federal genie is totally out of the bottle and it will be difficult to put it back in. All states need to re-exert their 10th amendment power and refuse to obey or enforce any federal law that is un-Constitutional. Let's amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget, and add penalties for any un-Constitutional act. We should also make impeachment of Supreme Court Justices a more frequent occurrence.