Bitcoin is an open sourced, consensus-based distributed system. If objectively superior features are developed elsewhere, they may be integrated into Bitcoin. In fact, many already have been.
This is where the problem is... consensus takes time in Bitcoin, and a lot of people with personal agendas are influencing the ultimate consensus. These private technologies will have a centralized
organization and they will adapt quickly to the needs of the centralized organization and developers will have little say in the matter. They will just be employed to make the changes forced down
on them by these organizations. Bitcoin can adopt many of these improved features, BUT the slow consensus system will hamper their progress in the future. The debate about the block size have
been going on for years... How much longer will a major change or a added feature take, to reach consensus?