And next you will tell me that Friedrich Nietszche is the missing link to our future.
You summed it up well when you said, "There never was such a thing."
The proto-humans, seemingly spawned from primates, would've been better adapted than the primates, but the primates are still here and the proto-humans aren't. Holes. Everywhere holes, I tell you...
None of the primates of 13 million years ago are still here. They have all evolved forward.
Some took one path (such as the apes), some another (such as the chimps and humans), some yet another (such as the gibbons and their cousins). But in no case is there a primate specie alive today that is exactly as it was 13 million years ago.
All have changed.
All primates descend from a common ancestor. Populations of the ancestor species moved into different environments and adapted to them, forming new, more specialized species. These descendants are what we see today. Lack of spceialization is what did in the ancestor species.
Apes and such are still around because they fill an ecological niche quite well. Humans might be better at most things but the apes are good enough for where they fit in the ecosystem.
You are assuming that a species has to be the best to survive. That's really not true. Usually, being just okay is good enough.