Pretty much. The R0 was high from the onset and has only gotten worse with new mutations. This isn't surprising either. To get to herd immunity, we'd need a very high percentage of the population to be immune. The one difference from before the vaccines is that we now know they don't make you immune.
Has any vaccine in known history been truly 100% effective? "Immunity" was never the goal to my understanding.
The Polio vaccine is >99% effective after the full course.
Polio and a few other vaccines really spoiled us in terms of what's realistic when vaccinating against a Coronavirus. Vaccinated != Immune, sadly.
No, but the chance of breakthrough infection with the current vaccines is high enough that it's unlikely to allow good herd immunity at realistic vaccination rates, which sucks.
Immunity is always the goal if you can get it. It's not how you judge success though, you're right.
Thankfully the vaccines do drastically reduce severe illnesses though, so that's something.
The boosters seem to help quite a bit. Perhaps higher effectiveness even than after the second dose.