So if you're talking about Ethereum as a bad implementation of a good idea, you're weighing up reality against something that was a hypothetical from 1994 to 2014.
In any case, there's plenty really obviously wrong with the idea of immutable smart contracts. Legal code is a bad match for computer code; immutability means changes in circumstances can't be allowed for; immutability means you must code with zero bugs; the oracle problem (getting real-world data in and out of your smart contract) ...
"Dr. Strangelove" is the story of a smart contract going wrong, unstoppably, immune to human intervention.
Szabo's stuff is better than the reality - he does actually understand law as well as code, and at least early on he considered there was a role for human intervention - but it's still the sort of thing that's "interesting" rather than "a good idea".
I spent about three thousand words on the smart contracts chapter, attempting to conclusively stab this bad idea in the face and supply a suitable rhetorical ammo dump for anyone faced with having to deal with these things to kill the idea stone dead. Absolutely everything about smart contracts is terrible and misconceived. I don't believe there is any way to do them right, because the idea is fundamentally wrong.
Here's (an older draft, need to update) what I actually say about Solidity and Ethereum smart contracts: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/ethereum-smart-contract...