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There are many more plausible forms of government than those that have been tried. Consider the various forms of Monarchy. How do they handle the problem of the stupid eldest son? Basically they don't. Historical monarchies were small and had problems with communications. Clarity about succession is vital and often lacking. So a simple rule, that invariably chooses the eldest son might be the best that was possible in the past. But modern conditions allow a country like France to have a more elaborate approach to succession, such as The Rotating Triple Crown.
One might look at the options for a country like the UK with around 60000000 people. One king gives a ratio of rulers to ruled of 60000000 to 1. An aristocracy of two dozen Earls makes it 2500000 to 1. A broader aristocracy with a thousand Barons has 2500000 ruled to each ruler. Then we leap to democracy with 48 million electors; the ration of ruled to rulers is five to four. There is a big gap in the ruled to rulers ratio. The expansion of the franchise took around a hundred years, so there is a sense that the missing, intermediate ratios did get tried. But only in a transitory sense. We haven't really tried having one hundred ruled to each ruler, in the sense of having a broad ruling class 600000 strong combined with a lasting commitment to elitism.
Stable oligarchies are possible at a range of intervening ratios. The most famous is the Venetian Republic, with a hereditary Great Council of about 2000 people, out of a total population of 2.5 million (1000 ruled to each ruler) of whom about a tenth were nominal citizens with certain privileges and the vestigial right to approve the Great Council's choice of Doge (100 citizens to each ruler, or about 25 adult male citizens to each ruler). I would argue that the same is true of England from the 1688 Glorious Revolution (when the Commons became the most powerful part of the constitution) to either 1868 (when all urban heads of household got the vote) or 1884 (when rural heads of household got the vote) - the property-owning middle class* who had the vote was about 7% of the population or 20% of the adult male population (5 adult male citizens to each ruler).
The Roman Republic is a more complex case because it had different assemblies for different purposes with different franchises, but the centuriate assembly which elected the consuls was de facto controlled by the patricians, eques, and first class of plebians - which collectively represent probably 10-20% of the adult male citizen population (with the vote further weighted in favour of the higher classes and men over 47 years old within each class). This arrangement lasted a few hundred years from the fall of Tarquins to the rise of Marius and Sulla.
* The famous 1832 Reform Act was mostly about fixing the constituency map so that the middle class vote was meaningful, not enfranchising more people. Although it did widen the franchise a bit by updating the definition of property-owning middle class to reflect Victorian social realities.
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Oh, great. Instead of a simple system with simple problems, how about a complicated system with complicated problems and geometrically more avenues for exploitation and subversion.
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The Chinese solved this thousands of years ago. The emperor has many wifes and concubines. He therefor has many sons. One of them will be suitable. He writes down two sealed statements* about which of his many sons is best suited to be the next emperor.
*Not just one as when Qin Shi Huang died and a fake succession document was produced. To prevent this from happening again, one of the two documents was stored in the rafters of a big room in the palace. The point being there'd be no feasible way to swap it out with fake documents. 密储制度
If you ever get a chance to visit Chinese palaces go for it. They are great museums. They have English translations on all their exhibits. I have seen the finest 1600s clocks that have golden angels circling the clock face. Some Chinese emperors liked Western clocks and clockwork machines so missionaries brought them suitable gifts.
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In that particular example, that would also solve the dispute between the Legitimists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists....
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