I read the white paper about a Tangle a few years ago. The design doesn't make sense because it doesn't seem like the network would be able to reach some kind of consensus at all.

Also, rolling your own POW and making claims about that POW isn't some trivial thing. Hashcash was created in 1997 which is eleven years before bitcoin. Rolling your own crypto system isn't just something where you can just make one up and use in a production environment.