wouldn't it be ideal to have a monarchy/dictatorship so that our leaders can spend time thinking about legislation rather than those pesky elections?

There can be some reasonable arguments made for this to be the case. The future ruler could be educated in proper statesmanship, wouldn't have to pander to the masses, would arguably be more difficult to bribe, could focus on governing, etc.

But the failure mode of such a government seems to be much worse than a democracy's.