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I know this is all hypothetical -- I realize that God prepared +ABL for the mission His Divine Providence had planned for him, which was from the 60's at Vatican II itself until his death in 1991.

But indulge me for a moment --

Things are worse than they have ever been, INCLUDING the past 50 years of Crisis.

With regards to the Crisis in the Church and Tradition, in most ways, the 70's and 80's were "the good old days" compared to today.

Just look at the first 10 years of the SSPX, vs. the first 10 years of the Resistance -- you'll see what I mean. SAME DOCTRINAL POSITION. But +ABL was living on EASY MODE compared to Bishop Williamson and the other Resistance bishops.

The only single advantage -- a lifejacket, if you will -- is the existence of the Internet now. Which is both a blessing and a curse, of course. Ebay makes it easy to get equipment for new chapels -- but it also means that closing churches will sell stuff on eBay now instead of donating it to a poor chapel. The Internet makes it easy to advertise and find new parishioners -- but you also get errors and proselytizing from rival groups, taking away parishioners from you. So the Internet giveth, and the Internet taketh away -- as it were.

But here's the clincher:

Imagine if +ABL had to compete with an entrenched FSSP with 550 priests and hundreds of chapels, offering the "Latin Mass" in union with Rome, usually less than 1 hour from most people? The SSPX would never have taken off.

Sure, but the fact is there would be no FSSP, in fact no Indultarian/Motarian movement at all were it not for +Lefebvre.  With a handful of independent pre-V2-ordained  priests passing away now, the Tridentine Mass would have been all but exstinct. 

All these Motarians who are so critical of the SSPX "schism" would not exist, and they would not have what they have, were it not for the "disobedience" of Archbishop Lefebvre.

But the primary reasons for the Resistance’s “failure to launch” are the direct result of Bishop Williamson’s policies, once he joined the pre-existing Resistance, and changed its raison d’etre.

That’s not a criticism, but a simple historical assessment.

The Resistance today is exactly the way His Lordship wanted it.

Obviously, I disagree with the OP premise that Lefebvre would not have succeeded today

It's too soon to judge through the lens of history. We're very much still living through this thing. It's far from over. WAY too soon to call winners and losers.

If anything, I'd have to call +W the winner because he was prepared -- and preparing us -- for something like the COVID totalitarian lockdowns. It's harder to shut down Mass and the Sacraments when you're the SSPX, than when you're "a loose network of independent priests" that arranges Mass by word of mouth only. And frankly, I think the next 10 years will look a lot more like 2020, than they will look like any previous year. 2020 is a taste of things to come. 

There is a prominent cleric who felt as you did: Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer. We all know how THAT ended up. He wanted SSPX II so bad he could taste it. He even attempted to get himself consecrated by a random Thuc bishop. Is his cult flourishing? I don't think so. Ordaining (even worse: "ordaining") unfit, untrained, or poorly trained men to the priesthood CAN'T end well. That much we CAN conclude from long-ago history.

The main limiting factor in the Resistance is the priest shortage. There haven't been any defections from the SSPX in coon's years, especially since the Neo-SSPX learned their lessons from Vatican II -- and 2012 -- and transferred Fr. Rostand and totally changed tactics. "No more persecutions. No more martyrs. No more defections" was the order of the day.