In my time, we just didn't have enough people who were powerful enough to do it, I think. There was one, maybe two that could have managed it, but they generally had other things going on and you don't want to be the one who fucked up the one thing that could deal with the Spectre if necessary.

What I'm understanding is that there's at least an entire planet in this century that is made up of magic users. They probably have a better shot at sorting it out now than we did in my time.