I'm sure that I could have fixed it, but I gave up after spending multiple evenings on it. Have you ever spent hours debugging a system exclusively in text mode? It isn't fun. Reinstalling the OS takes less than 30 minutes. It's a clear choice for me
Yes in fact, I have spent hours debugging a system from the console. links/lynx is a godsend. I agree though, reinstalling is certainly easier. This is more of a philosophical argument than a practical one. I installed Arch to really learn Linux, not just to get work done. If I just wanted to get work done, I'd have used Fedora, Ubuntu, or Debian.