MeanWestTexan offers a plausible explanation in post 25, above.
I think nearly everyone just takes their culture (including all the technology) for granted, and rolls (ahem) with it. In traditional societies everywhere, there wasn't a notion of "progress". People didn't ask “is there a better way". Even today, there are huge differences in inventiveness between cultures. Compare the U.S. to nearly anywhere. Or, more dramatically, Israel to everyone else in their neighbourhood.
More interesting to me besides the wheel (which, again, I view as a product of terrain and lack of draft animals) is the lack of pulley, block-and-pulley and the like.
This would have been of great use in mountainous terrain and for building their elaborate stone structures.
As in, “how do you get the rock to the top?”
It appears, they built earthworks around the structures and pushed and pulled (probably on logs, which are akin to wheels, and better since a double-axle cart would break), which is primarily what the Egyptians did.
But still -— a pulley is a force mutiplier extraordinaire.
I suppose that is a factor of lack of ships and sails, which is where our pulley thinking came about.