Along the lines that Judge Thomas voiced regarding other past SCOTUS rulings based on imaginary 'substantive due process.' It is an offense to the law to have cases decided via made up reasoning. That doesn't necessarily imply Thomas thought the goals the bad rulings supported were bad.
It could be that valid law to support them existed, but lazy judges didn't think that far after hitting on the invalid reasoning. In which case the law would benefit from revisiting the cause and ruling with the same end result but valid reasoning. Less apt to corrupt future related cases. Or it could be that the underlying cause was constitutional, but the legislature wrote the laws poorly. So they deserved to be overridden on technicalities and rewritten to comport with the constitution. Or it could be that, although the cause being legislated was popular it just isn't allowed under the Constitution. In which case, if it is really popular enough, amend the Constitution. That that process requires substantial popularity, across most of the country, sustained over several years, to accomplish is a feature, not a bug, of the Constitution.
It is worth noting that it took 14 years from the ratification of the 18th, to repeal it and Federal prohibition with the 21st. Moreover, it, in present day context, is worth remembering that, in spite of the 21st being popularly remembered as ending prohibition nationwide, it did no such thing. It just repealed Federal usurpation of the issue and explicitly empowered the States to make their own laws. Exactly analogous to what Dodd did to Roe. And although both amendments were considered huge things in their time, both were legitimized by many more than 9 people. There are now a hodgepodge of different rules, regarding at least some alcoholic beverages, in different jurisdictions and they change over time with local sensibilities. Over time abortion law will do the same.
I agree with everything you said.