9 years later and that benchmark has still not ben surpassed
While what you are saying is true, you have to admit that there are very few backward compatible solutions that Bitcoin could implement.
Of course, the network could (and probably should) reinvent itself entirely, as efficiency is clearly not its biggest strength. But it won't, because Bitcoin's popularity also gave it great inertia, and all changes have to both satisfy all parties AND can't allow the network to fork into pieces.
the thing is. the network DID controversially fork
there was a controversial hard fork in summer 2017, to get rid of opposition. to then fake approval for segwit to activate after the controversy
if devs were smart they would have used the controversial date to include extra features that could only be included using a controversial fork
the whole 'compatibility' ruse was not about network security but as a ploy to try and get segwit activated without having to reach the ultimate consensus %
..
but anyway. here is some funny facts
1. Sipa (pieter wuille) the innovator/dev of segwit still to this day does not trust his bitcoin donations on segwit bech32 addresses
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ - bottom right of page - 1NrohbDoPkARCGdjvtnXbwFLwoBH86pskX
2. BTCC, the biggest bitcoin mining pool that sponsored advocated and promoted sgwit as being the best thing ever, did not trust bitcoin blockrewards to be put on segwit bech32 addresses
13TEThZNnKPk34HYAuo1QqYMwDdjF3qeHx
even its last block (543,040) used legacy