As for your claim about the "popular guys being a success", I would say that is true at the private, selective school I went to, but when you get to your Joe Schmoe average public high school, the bully/jock types usually wind up sitting on their a-s at the tavern, talking about the good old days, while the geeks they teased were smart enough the get out of that hole.
Its all very complex. Charm without brains can only get you so far, and vice versa.
Who said anything about ‘girls gone wild’ types? That’s a strange thing to raise since I didn’t raise anything like that. There are very attractive women of good substance - many of them don’t take off their t-shirts for free booze,
Both the bully/jock types and the nerdier types very often manage to remain in the hole. The nerds don;t necessarily have a leg up in that department.
It is complex, no question. Either charm and brains are in fact quite common.