A world where everything is "protected" as a trade secret would be preferable since trade secrets can be lawfully reverse engineered. They are only useful for things that you can meaningfully keep secret which is a tiny subset of ideas that are currently protected by patents, especially in egregious cases of patent trolling.

For patents to make sense we also have to ignore how they are used. Patents are used as mine fields around incumbents to keep challengers out. They are also used by parasitic companies who don't actually make anything as a legal form of extortion.

Yes, it is indeed naive to ignore reality and buy into the fantasy that patents contribute to society or in any way level the playing field. They do neither.