It is easy to blame the patent office until you realize that most cases are a single examiner in the office up against multiple law firms who continually ask what is wrong with the patent, told that according to their interpretation of the rules it is ok, refine and re-apply until granted.
You have hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, and the resources of the best patent lawyers in the world and the largest companies in the world up against (usually) a single examiner.
What you're saying is true, but even after digesting it it is still easy for me to blame the patent office (if not individual patent examiners) for the problem.
The current brokenness of the patent system is due to a snowball effect. If the patent office hadn't let the system slide out of control to the current state of brokenness, their examiners would have more authority to push back on anyone trying to push sketchy "inventions" through the system.
Seems like it would simply delay the issue, being, once you've gotten an overly broad and generic patent through the system (however long it took) you can wield that weapon pretty broadly.
Reduce the length of time the patent is valid or remove the benefits of software patents, and you'll reduce the pressure on the USPTO pretty sharply.
You have hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, and the resources of the best patent lawyers in the world and the largest companies in the world up against (usually) a single examiner.