not necessary. things move together, the technology was introduced then it started being developed and as a matter of fact "the technology of lightning network" was already done a while ago.
what you are seeing as "being developed" are the applications that are using the technology or protocol. and they need time to become perfect and without bugs as much as possible.
think of it as building a new wallet from scratch for bitcoin.
I agree, it is an iterative process: the same happened for web browsers and generally internet a while ago. I can remember those early times. You needed to open different clients for each protocol http, ftp and so on, there was no support to embed a video or a streamer. But the technology was there and people could build some user interface around it, and from there new user needs (requirements) arrived, so then when the technology supported those new needs, the user interface was created and so on.
What I am trying to say is that it may be difficult to guess the final seamless experience users are expecting if you don't create versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 first.