The absence of feedback loops, MoEs, etc, is endemic to social policy in general. Its a personal pet peeve of mine, glad to know its got real life impacts as well.

As far as the handing out trinkets aspect though, when properly employed its about far more than handing out the trinkets.

F2F ops need to have a vehicle to facilitate communication. Just imagine how awkward it would be to walk into say, a high school lunchroom, and try to accomplish some small simple change in behavior, like taking a different route home that evening. I personally might be able to walk into an Algerian coffee shop and not turn heads and make an ass of myself, but I promise you if I tried the same thing in say, Russia, I'd have a very hard time interacting successfully on my own (even though I've got zero Arab blood but my grandfather was born in Russia)