This reminded me of NASA's Technology Readiness Levels. Bicycles are a good example: it took more than 70 years of steady iteration before the design settled into something we'd recognize today. Looking back, it feels obvious. Living through it probably didn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_bicycle
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communcations-n...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level