Really really confused about transistor hFE values

I'm a 1st year electronics student and there is obviously something that I am missing about BJT transistors and current gain. I am told that the hFE value is the ratio of collector current and base current, and ofcourse you can find it on data sheets. On the transistor that I've been trying to crack the code on (BC547CTA) the hFE values are specified to range from 420 to 800, which I already found to be really wide and unbelievably unspecific when I saw it for the first time, but also when I try multiple collector/base resistor configurations, in real life and in LTspice, it just seems like that hFE value, a thing that is specified on the data sheet to range from this to that, can be literally anything you want. I got collector/base current ratios as low as 60 in real life, and for fun I'm just pushing boundaries in LTspice getting the base current higher than the collector current and afaik it just works.

Then naturally the questions that follow for me are (I'm completly certain there's answers):

1. What's the point of specifying an already wide range of hFE values if they can vary so vastly depending on simple circuit paramaters?

2. Wtf am I missing