No, the game is not "broken", and I don't think that anyone is saying that it is. It just works in a very specific way, and to be successful you need to understand that way, and the player behavior it encourages.
But rather than sit here and argue about it, I'd really like to see more discussion aimed at helping people cope with this. How do you ensure that your orders are delivered in a timely manner? Whether timely means "within an hour of the turn" or "give the orders in advance/the turn before", or some other scheme, how do you do it?
