It didn’t really work fine, at least not by the 2000s. Between the high speed injury causing hits, and kickers ability to jack it out of the back of the endzone the play got bad. They moved it up to reduce the hits, but that just made more touchbacks. Which then just made it boring. It replaced the PAT as the most boring play in North American sports. So now they’re trying to return it to an actual football play, but with less injuries.
Making it a touchback and coming back to the 35 isn’t going to make people run more. The kick off is part of football and screwing with it is making the game even more boring.