I totally agree, and those same advances apply to firearm metallurgy!
Not really. The firearms industry has largely ceased looking for new metallurgy. They’re content to run 4140 and 8620 alloy steel for frames, 4140-like steels for barrels, or 410, 416 or 420 stainless for stainless guns and call it pretty much done. S&W has played with these aluminum-scandium alloys for handgun frames, but I think the results will deter most others from following them down that road.
If you want to see advanced metallurgy on guns (with regard to strength/weight/etc), you’d need to look at the German gun trade, not the US gun trade.
If the US gun trade were not so lawyer-adverse, then you might see alloys like 4340 make it into use, but seeing as how lawyers make the use of anything new a legal liability, we probably won’t. 4140-like steels have a long track record in the US gun industry, and that’s where we’re likely to stay for a long time to come.