Is doing nothing doing something?

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a former astronaut about his experiences flying 3 shuttle missions. He mentioned that each mission has a crew member trained as the medic for the trip, which led to a conversation about the supplies they carried and the emergencies they trained for. Ultimately, he wound up talking about their protocol for doing CPR in zero gravity. The problem with trying to do CPR chest compressions inside a space shuttle in zero gravity is that anytime you push against something Newton's Laws still apply, so rather than generating a good compression you just drift away. 

How did NASA solve that problem?

No.  Actually, the solution was not Catstronaut.

NASA's solution: In the moment when a vital crew member is dying from a cardiac event and there isn't a minute to lose, the protocol calls for taking about an hour to set up a securely-braced platform to attach the crew members to, so that CPR chest compressions can be performed effectively. They all knew that by the time the system was set up it would be too late for CPR anyway.  They all knew it was a completely inadequate solution to a terrible situation, but they trained for it anyway because there was no other/better answer, and simply doing nothing seems wrong.

On a somehow-related note, I'm giving a presentation at work soon about treatments for Traumatic Optic Neuropathy, which is vision loss caused by injury to the optic nerve.  It's a controversial subject because all of the treatment options have major risks, and none of them are proven to work.  Picture a person who has just been blinded by nerve trauma and all we want is to make it better, but we have no reliably-proven way to do so, and the harder we try for a benefit the more risk it is to the patient.  ...But yet again, simply doing nothing seems wrong.

And yet again, shockingly,
somehow the solution is not Catstronaut.

Is it more frustrating to have a lousy answer or to have no answer at all? Imagine if instead of describing a detailed protocol (albeit one that won't work), what if that page in the manual just said "We're very sorry. There's no way to fix this one." 

Would that be better or worse?