The reforms were hoped for by the cardinals themselves, lending their opinions to the voices of many church folk who found the Vatican bureaucracy entirely light years beyond Byzantine. It may be that in some of the pages of Canon Law there are little rules, nothing much in themselves, which end with a reference to another entry, and so on and on. Creating thus a nearly impossible program for any reform to discover, nearly impossible to understand, and for those desiring an internal reform a charge down a narrowing corridor with no gate, just a wall, at the end. It would explain incrementality

It was a few years before my time, but Pope Pius accomplished some fantastic changes during his years: things liturgical, the Divine Office, various usages, and of course, the restoration of the Great Vigil of Easter to its proper place. Maybe we'll find a liturgical historian who wrote about how Pius got from A to Z with those projects and what the price was in time and papal sweat equity.