That is the reality with research. Research is not to be confused with development.
What you have captured in your post is commentary from lots of experienced people who are experienced in the area of development, not so much in the area of research.
Consider this - the original development of the transistor was not done by a group of business people looking to develop a new product by aggregating a bunch of existing ideas from research. It was a small team of 3 lead scientists who were simply doing basic research.
Likewise with the invention of the integrated circuit, again just a couple of people (two, to be precise, and they weren't even working together or for the same company) who decided to create something that no one else seemed interested in working on.
Look at the Finfet, sure Intel refined it and put it into mass production but it wasn't developed or even researched internally, it is the brainchild of one person working with a very small team of equally bright scientists nearly 15 yrs ago.
The world is full of people who can follow someone else's example. Show them what must be done and they can execute, but they can't do anything if no one is leading them or telling them what to do.
This is the problem with listening to experts in the area of development, they can't think outside the box they are given by the researchers. So to them everything is a glass ceiling with defined limitations (limitations defined by the edge of their knowledge of what researchers have apprised them of).
If you really are curious about scaling and where things are going you have to engage a researcher, not a developer, and pick their brains over a pint or two.
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