NYC has some of the most annoying faregates ever conceived of. The "cages" have bizarre mechanics that makes pushing them annoying, and the "normal" turnstiles make it hard to push even a small suitcase through.
Tokyo has probably the best-designed faregates I have ever seen and I wish NYC would copy them.
You are not wrong; and yet, HOW they use their money is another big problem altogether. I can't find the right reference now, but BART is one of the most expensive transit systems in the world ("per mile", I assume the calculation was) in terms of maintenance and operations.