HATEOAS is the name Fielding came up with when philosophizing about the architectural style of the Web circa 2000 and how it differed from other architectural styles. That's all it is. That it's "too unstructured for computers to automatically use" is not a failure case, because there was no objective other than to describe how the Web worked. He was developing a taxonomy—of the world as it is—not trying to invent something new and admonishing people that "Hey, this is how we really ought to be doing things", unlike many of the articles that you've probably read about the promises of this whole "REST" thing, right?

If you expect it to be anything else at this point, then you are sure to end up disappointed, because you are setting yourself up for failure. Kinda sucks that an entire industry misled you into thinking otherwise, but that is its wont...