It's not that we aren't very good at it, it's that nobody wants to do it. I'd liken it to building codes: given the advances in materials science, one would ex

It's not that we aren't very good at it, it's that nobody wants to do it. I'd liken it to building codes: given the advances in materials science, one would expect us to be building wildly more diverse styles of homes, with ornate forms and functions that were unimaginable 40 years ago. Why don't we? It turns out that consumers are cheap and unsophisticated. As hardwood becomes plywood+edging becomes MDF+veneer, people are willing to boil the quality frog to grease economies of scale, and by the time we wonder why the hell nothing in our house lasts longer than 2 years, a very heavy pendulum is in motion and that's about the end of it. There are real gains here for templatization, repeatability, speed, and maintenance. When everything is built the same way, it's easy to find someone to work on it for a low price, and the people who use it know how it works before they walk in the door. Just as every house looks like home depot, every app looks like bootstrap. Breaking these cycles requires that the masses have taste, funds, bargaining power, and lasting resolve. On average, we don't. I don't know if it's possible to separate the good from the bad. Things that used to be metal and last 30 years are now plastic that might not make it 30 days. But those same forces are the only reason it's economical to produce eg a flagship phone, which are downright miracles of manufacturing.