> I just assumed Einstein-tier people had discovered all the optimal ways to do things by now.
This is the answer to your question, almost everyone makes the same assumption you do.
There are a surprising number of problems in computer science that no one works on because everyone assumes that other clever people are. Relatedly, people assume the set of possible solutions has been exhaustively explored because there have been no incremental improvements in decades. Or people assume the scope of optimality of a well-known solution is much broader than it actually is.
The vast majority of people in software never test or revisit these assumptions. If you do test these assumptions, you will be surprised by how often you find low-hanging fruit.
This is the answer to your question, almost everyone makes the same assumption you do.
There are a surprising number of problems in computer science that no one works on because everyone assumes that other clever people are. Relatedly, people assume the set of possible solutions has been exhaustively explored because there have been no incremental improvements in decades. Or people assume the scope of optimality of a well-known solution is much broader than it actually is.
The vast majority of people in software never test or revisit these assumptions. If you do test these assumptions, you will be surprised by how often you find low-hanging fruit.