Criticizing a team for failing in the past few years is the height of ignorance unless you see that their drafts and moves don't help the team to improve their potential for the playoffs.
You have to be a true homer not to realize that Houston is building a better team every year to challenge in the West--while we seem to be failing to improve.
Barry offers good perimeter shooting to help space the floor for Yao and TMAC plus a veteran point guard who could provide some good minutes for them.
Houston has a problem at point guard and is trying to shore it up with Barry who could easily earn more minutes in Houston than in SA.
I wouldn't knock Houston's efforts to improve unless you can point to comparable moves by the Spurs.