I agree. I think it's often confused between listening to the needs of customers, and balancing that with actually what is practical or possible. The real world is about balance, shades of grey, resources, money, people's fears and desires, their limits and talents and many other factors. From the outside, its not always possible to gauge exactly why things happen or the practicalities. This applies to any industry, not just the railways. But obviously it doesn't stop people, oh if I was in charge, I'd do this, it's simple. Or making out its company X doesn't care, because spotty teenagers put a load of supermarket trolleys on the line and a whole train wasn't charted for themselves. Not politically correct to say, but its true. Most companies want your custom, but none have unlimited resources and mistakes are made.
Although, this is not to say customer input is not valuable or there aren't better or smarter ways of doing things. I must stress that. And there are examples of bad customer service in the railways as there are elsewhere.
I do think some parts of the media present things in very simplistic ways sometimes, which doesn't help. No wonder Brits are the most angry in Europe, on average getting angry 4 times per day!