I think the mistake you've made is thinking we were ever in a position to consolidate ourselves as a top club. That just isn't the way football works.
The natural order means we're a club who should be finishing anywhere between the bottom half of the PL to the top half of the Championship. You can over achieve and under achieve, like we've done on several occasions over the last 30 years. But that is our standing in the football pyramid.
Of course the decisions you make on and off the pitch affects that and I'm not removing the blame from anyone at the club. In fact I think the problems were originally created by the people at the top of the club sharing your mentality that we had the opportunity to establish ourselves as a big club. We moved away from selling our best players when we had the chance and implemented a ridiculous wage structure that was well beyond our means. But even if we did everything right, we would have still just delayed the inevitable that eventually we would revert to being a bottom half PL club or top half Championship club.
And for those praising Brentford, Bournemouth, Brighton etc, I'd place a bet that they'll all end up getting relegated in the next 5-10 years. Pretty depressing view of football I know, but that's just the reality.