But at the very least we agree that wishing the most painful and gruesome deaths possible to people is something that we should be well beyond.

I personally agree with you, and think its a noble aspiration to hold but we're talking about the human race here. Throughout our entire history we've been savages willing to inflict pain, death and destruction on everything we've come across and that hasn't changed all that much over time. Sure we've become better and more effiecent at killing each other which can hide the savagery of the actions, but its still nonetheless evidence of our barbaric instincts.

Im also not a fan of using the argument of that barbarity to persuade others the death penalty is 'wrong'. For me it comes down to the fallibility of the actual process we use to sentence someone to death. There are times when there is overwhelming and insurmountable evidence of a crime, and in those cases there is an argument to be made that death is a just punishment, but far too often, and for far too many people there are some that are sent to be executed on flimsy, circumstantial, or falsified evidence.

I don't trust the people in charge to get it right 100% of the time, and if that results in a single innocent person being executed then the entire system is flawed and no one else ever should be.