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"Mostly consistent" is not good enough for many applications.

The thing most people pick in practice is CA, single master with hopefully a replicated backup.

Absolutely. And that's the right choice IF you can make it. Switching to CP or AP is something you should do because you're forced to.

That's something lost on a lot of modern engineers, I think. Distributed Systems are something you do because you have to, not because they're the best approach inherently.

You've misunderstood the theorem. It doesn't say you can't achieve any combination of mostly C/A/P; it says you can't have perfect C, A, and P at the same time.

That’s because for many use cases, you don’t need to be perfect.

The theorem is about being perfectly C, A, and P

Those things are binary. You have them or mot. Theres no: 'mostly'.

If you have more than two hosts, you have P.

If you have delay to sync, you have C.

If you send inaccurate data instead of waiting you have A.

Theres no 'mostly'