I know nothing directly about American credit scores, but I've always thought that it actually makes sense (in a capitalist society trying to make a profit) to give higher scores (and thus more loans with less risk) to those most likely to end up overpaying. So taking loans, paying interest on them, and always paying the minimum to lengthen the time that you provide profits to the creditor is the best way to max score.

This makes perfect sense. The fact that this score is used to distribute resources instead of just calculating likelihood of paying back/likelihood of profit is what makes this huge contradiction arise. But the scores make perfect sense for being bad when you are "responsible". The score is how profitable it is to loan you money.