[my12pence]

It's typically human to classify something we've just begun to understand as insane before time and deeper thought yield appreciation and in some cases, awe. Though I may just be describing dunning kruger here.

That being said I don't agree with anything the OP said about these being "ugly hacks". As another poster said, the UX of the visual system is exceptional, we've built no system as elegant or functional.

When you look at eyes and visual system from a systems design perspective they don't look randomly generated, they look purposefully engineered the way they are. Making educated tradeoffs against the limits of physics and organic chemistry.