I predicted 80% on this particular set of reforms being good but I would have put 60 on the opposite if he had disguised the identity of the revolutionaries. Democracy and freedom are good and the French revolution/Napoleon were generally better at those than the pre-existing institutions. But most revolutions (and wars, and natural disasters) don’t budge it either way. The average is a short burst of bloodshed followed by more of what came before.
I highly doubt that wars or disasters are net good on average. Being defeated in WWII was probably good for the axis powers’ economies because they replaced totalitarian states with democracies. But I doubt that’s the default outcome. Losing a war with Spain, for example, seems to have been very bad for most countries’ long-term prospects.
I think most or all of these rituals are still functional even if participants can’t see it. If you want to see that up close, look at how you get the rules waived. If a dispute over a document goes to court, a judge can waive almost any formal defect. But they won’t always do it, and someone else, like the clerk, can’t. The formalities take the place of human judgment because only a few people are trusted to exercise the appropriate level of judgment and getting it in front of such a person is expensive and time-consuming.