I've never hard that they were. Only that they had the lobbying muscle to mostly get their way.
Since most maintenance staff don’t do the special procedures properly (and barely manage to deal with normal toilets properly!) they were a big headache. [https://www.waterless.com/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-selectin...].
Everywhere I know of that was using them eventually got rid of them because they weren’t worth it for the small water savings they actually got.
Especially since water usage was never anything but a hot button PR topic - there are probably only a handful of places humans habitate that the difference is actually non-negligible when you factor in showers, landscaping, etc.
https://www.12ft.io/https://www.wired.com/2010/06/ff-waterle...
The links you're pointing to are to articles when the idea was 'hot'. And when all the press was going on around saving water in California (notably dead now, as is the norm).
If you didn't notice the issues, then congrats! someone in the maintenance team was doing the work so you didn't have to see what was happening.
I'm not a plumber, but I do own property and have installed (permitted/inspected) several toilets and had to do my own maintenance. Flushless was never worth the squeeze for me, but then I never had to deal with PR issues or fads. I was my own customer, and got to pick what worked for me and those around me.