I used to make it the traditional way as well: searing the meat, stewing, separately stewing the pearl onions and herbs… Then I discovered I can make it taste identical (and have much more tender beef chunks) by just making it all in the Instapot. You do it in 2 steps so your veggies don’t turn to mush, but it takes around an hour, 2 tops. You can still cook the pearl onions on the side if you want (I have opted for just cutting up yellow onions, as pearls or shallots are not readily available where I live). You could probably preecook the beef in the Instapot the day before and have the Bourginon finished in half an hour if you wanted!
The majority of fairy tales (as told throughout human history) do not have happy endings. They were typically told to teach or reinforce hard social truths to prepare young people for the world. The “fairy-tale ending” is really an anachronism of modern, capitalistic story telling. Happy fantasy sells, and reinforces myths that benefit the elite, such as upward social and financial mobility (see Jane Austin, or every Disney movie), and the opportunity to become part of the landed gentry. The belief that everything always works out is itself a major piece of the capitalists propaganda machine, and because we fall for this, we keep making decisions against out best interests - We are all just one fateful encounter away from becoming rich or famous after all.