They also never intended judges to have so much power.
Yes. The Constitution only provides for the Supreme Court and not for any of the lower Federal government courts. Marbury versus Madison, the case that asserted that the judicial branch decides whether confressionally-passed legislation is constitutional, was decided decades after the adoption of the Constitution. The Senate was elected by the state legislatures, thereby giving the states a role to play in the national government, until nearly 120 years later. And Congress didn’t start to delegate its legislative power to executive-branch administrative agencies in any meaningful way until the 1930s.
Yet the filibuster had been in place since the 18th century and lasted until this month in 2013.
Spot on. You are especially wise today. Is it the after-effects of a heavy American meal?