No, I think Brian knew what he was doing.
I agree. Intentionally failing.
I used to entertain this thought myself. And then maybe after spending all those many tens of thousands of dollars
on Pet Sounds and (broken) SMiLe he figured a home studio and a quickie LP would appease the Gods at the Tower.
Capitol was only the distributor for Smiley, BRI was the label and Brian was the God at the Bellagio.
I still say SS was not a quickie but just finished in a shorter span because there was not the waiting periods in between waiting for studio. Obviously Lockert was getting a more than good enough sound out of the rented equipment and home studio according to the tapes. I think we need to entertain the idea that Smiley was very deliberately and laboriously casual as per the desire of Brian. And he did it in spite of pressure from the Boys to hold on to the stuff already completed for SMiLE. Failing was the furthest thing from Brian's mind as they made SS in my opinion as shown by his excitement to hand deliver an exclusive preview of H&V.