Take a look at "The Blocksize War" for a fantastic rundown of the events that led to Bitcoin not increasing its throughput.

TLDR: Massively rushed changes, pushed by people with a lot of power on the network (miners and corporations), which ended up being largely antithetical to Bitcoin's decentralization thesis.

Bitcoin's value is in its stability, its decentralization, and its lack of hurried change. It is in the control of everyone, not just the powerful actors in the system. Its value is not in its ability to pivot every few years like a startup to fulfill some new purpose.