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Nothing wrong with the law. It's the complex procedural rules which need simplifying. Grafting the 'overriding objective' on to the old RSC and CCR would have worked better than starting with a thin rule book in replacement, which has (inevitably) expanded to something longer even than its predecessor.

Litigants will always play games, and making the rules long and complicated (however well intentioned they may be) will always provide opportunities for litigants to game the system. This is redoubled by making the sanctions for a breach of the rules severe. It used to be not uncommon that a wealthy litigant with a weak case would try and outspend the opponent, by constant resort to strict application of the rules; introducing extreme sanctions simply encouraged this tendency: instead of just outspending an opponent, the rich and unscrupulous could get a weaker opponent struck out, irrespective of any substantive merit.

The rules don't serve LIPs, nor are they intended to. They also give lawyers a bad name, as too many fights are over compliance with the rules rather than whether there is a proper legal claim or not, and lawyers are seen as taking advantage of the rules to deny justice (a legitimate tactic, but one can see it is offensive to the man in the street).