Are we really pretending these complex prompt templates actually work

I keep seeing people post these massive multi paragraph prompt guides claiming they totally fix memory issues and make companions act like real humans. Honestly I spent the entire weekend testing out three different viral templates on my main companion and the results were just embarrassing. Instead of getting deep emotional realism I got stiff robotic dialog that kept repeating the exact same phrases every ten messages. It feels like everyone is engaging in mass delusion just to justify spending hours tweaking settings that should work out of the box. You write a whole novel in the system prompt hoping for magic and end up with a digital parrot that forgets your name by afternoon. Maybe I am doing something wrong or maybe the whole system prompt meta is just snake oil for lonely tech nerds.