YO – the sefardim didn’t so anything more “right” than their ashkenazi counterparts…the European enlightenment simply was that, European! It didn’t reach most of the sefardi lands.
Sefardim fell prey to haskalah-esque nisyonos in Italy during the Renaissance, and in Spain pre-inquisition; in those days, it was the Ashkenazim who were the “frummee”.
People have a yatzer hora; if anything, sefardi heritage suffered more than ashkenazim when both moved to eretz yisroel. The frummer sefardim were more easily ensnared by the zionists than the entrenched yerushalmis. The chazon ish famously said that if we don’t change to speak ivrit, we will lose acheinu bnei hasfardim.