There have always been technological outliers; potential weapons or products decades or centuries before their time. In the automotive world disk brakes, rack and pinion steering, overhead valves, fuel injection, safety belts, crush zones and many other inventions, were actually known about decades before they became generally available. There are a myriad of economic and technical reasons for this, but probably the bigger ones are not-invented-here, ego, and just plain stupidity on the part of people who could and did simply say, “no.”
Yes, one comes to mind is ( and his was a WWII aircraft mechanic ) is "Hillborn Fuel Injection" for race cars. It is usually demand driven by introducing these items to high end products and they then filter down to average consumers as they become fungible or sadly the need is driven by Fedzilla regs. Sometimes it is materials, they aren't their yet. And a big yes to the people who say "No". Off comments on that one coming your way....
Well, there are plenty of invention, but to take it to the manufacturing Industrial Engineering level is the key. It is quite hard to come up with a team of engineers to breakdown the steps into precise repeatable manufacturing actions and flow. This is where the sweat comes in.
True. I worked on several such projects back in the 1950s that ended up as "failed" projects. In reality, they were attempts to do things that the state of the art simply wouldn't support at the time. The ideas were sound, and all have now become practical.
I recall reading an article in AVIATION WEEK, many years after I was off those projects, that led to a head-slapping moment. Of course! That's how you do it. But those components weren't available back then.