The problem with this analysis of aerospace progress is that you are focusing on the most obvious factors for differentiation and missing the real revolutions t

The problem with this analysis of aerospace progress is that you are focusing on the most obvious factors for differentiation and missing the real revolutions that are continuing to happen within the field. Yes, airplanes today have the same approximate shape and engine types that they had thirty years ago, but that is because the Cambrian explosion of the late forties and early fifties converged upon shapes and configurations that were simply the best option given all of the different factors that had to be balanced. The concord was fast, but speed is not everything. The reason that there were no other supersonic passenger craft is because once this particular prestige project actually started flying everyone saw what a bad idea it really was; if the plane had been built and flown by private companies it would have been retired a decade earlier. It was cramped, had abysmal fuel efficiency, and required a great deal of maintenance to keep flying. It also turned out that few people actually needed (or were willing to pay for) the speed advantage being offered. The current advances in passenger aircraft happen in areas that are not obvious to a casual observer; more efficient engines that require less maintenance, avionics that can fly the plane themselves and fly by wire systems that reduce weight and can increase safety. A modern sedan car looks very similar to one from twenty or thirty years ago, but the modern vehicle is superior in just about every possible way, The thing that you tend to forget about all of those "mind-blowing engineering achievements" is that most of them failed to have any significant impact -- optimization to an extreme along a single performance axis is neat, but not really as useful or interesting as most people think.