had this thought/realization about art progress;
what if, in order to spot some problems, you have to get to a satisfactory stage with your last set of problems? Since you're trying to tackle literally an entire world, you still have some of the same issues say 1, 5, 20 years in, but you hadn't and couldn't spot them before?
That'd explain the cyclical appearance of This Sucks => Okay Now This Looks Okay => This Rocks (several tech aspects come together) => This Sucks (next issues spotted)