I made a mistake when I tried to run it for one group of setting the difficulties too high, which can give results like you experienced.

I also found that when it went well, the players pushed for more "this aspect gives me permission without even having to roll". So if someone was playing "smooth talker" and the gm said to roll to get past a bouncer, the player might push back.

The time it went worst I think the players didn't really offer any creative input. Failures just turned into "I give up" instead of like "what if I convince him to let us in by lying that I'm someone famous, and then the real person shows up?" or whatever. I think it's hard for some players to zoom out from just their character and get more into the writer room space.