Uh, no. There have been multiple lasers built at LLNL of increasing power over the decades - NIF is the replacement for NOVA, which was the replacement for SHIV

Uh, no. There have been multiple lasers built at LLNL of increasing power over the decades - NIF is the replacement for NOVA, which was the replacement for SHIVA - which was used in TRON. Each successive laser has been least an order of magnitude more powerful than the previous I believe. And to say "no progress" is to belittle the efforts of a lot of people that are pushing the boundaries of physics and the associated engineering problems.