Excellent post which has a few points I'd like to add to:

1) "We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including our cars, but drive them home to kitsch architecture copied from the 18th century. The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as everything stays the same. We'll have Google Glass, but still also business casual."

I recently wrote a post about this phenomenon, which I'll share here: http://www.opir-music.com/blog/culture/is-everyone-naked-in-..., but the basic idea is summed up by Fran Leibowitz: "I have a number of theories but one theory is that we live in the era of such innovation in technology,” Lewbowitz said. “It’s almost like we can’t do two things at once. If science or technology is going to be racing ahead, then the society is stuck. Also, I think it’s a way for people of my age to stay in the center of things." That itself, of course, is a just-so story. What's important here is the observation. I'd also argue that we've enabled something never before possible to happen, which keeps certain things "in the past" (like music): mass intergenerational cultural transfer. What keeps the Beatles on top of music lists of people of all ages? What causes old songs to suddenly pop up as hits, decades after their release because of a YouTube video? It's this effect which seems to cause a large chunk of popular culture firmly set in past eras. We move things at the margin, yes, and yes, we have always borrowed from the past. However, it has never before been so easy for so many to listen and look at the things past generations have created and at such scale. Since "known cultural entities" often serve mainly as a kind of touchpoint between different people, the utility of these well-known icons in the social sphere is very valuable. You can "connect" with others across generations very easily. This isn't good or bad, but I think aptly describes a very different cultural landscape than ones in the past.

2) "It’s easy to get enthusiastic about design because, like talking about the future, it is more polite than referring to white elephants in the room.."

This is the sad realization that many (ex-)activists, technologists, and other ardent idealists often come to. It's easier to deal in the uncontroversial, the platitude-ridden, and the simplistic for a number of reasons. First, exclusion - if you add in the depth, the complexity, the nuance, the difficulty - you risk alienating those that are not knowledgeable enough to contribute. Sure, some are eager to learn, and others are eager to teach, but this means lots of time spent on getting people to a baseline rather than progressing. The second thing is plain conflict - often by nominal (and erstwhile) allies. The narcissism of small differences, loudmouths with a chip on their shoulder, and plain old confused angry people serve to stoke the fires of internecine warfare. I've seen it over and over in technology circles (where it can be ugly), and also in social justice "communities" (which are sometimes a nightmarescape of identity politics-based hatred) that I've been a part of. The experienced and the jaded look at this and either exit, or stick to the milquetoast. Neither helps progress anything.

3) "The most recent centuries have seen extraordinary accomplishments in improving quality of life. The paradox is that the system we have now --whatever you want to call it-- is in the short term what makes the amazing new technologies possible, but in the long run it is also what suppresses their full flowering. Another economic architecture is prerequisite."

Although usually applied to culture, I think the idea posited by Paul Treanor applies here as well:

"What already sells well, becomes more marketable. This is a general characteristic of all liberal social structures, not just the market. Repeated transactions and interactions, on the basis of the outcome of previous transactions and interactions, have a centering effect. Deviations from the norm are 'punished' by such regimes, and innovation is by definition a deviation from the existing norm."

That same "centering" effect on culture seems like it may also affect non-cultural entities. What drives things forward may also drive them back - a forced regression to the mean.