It's a pet peeve of mine that people think that sci-fi authors writing decades before the tech exists somehow got the design right, just because Hollywood made some pretty moving pictures that fired up your imagination.

It's hard enough to design things in the real world when you've got the tech in hand. There's no way to think that people got it right decades earlier with even larger disadvantages.

The reality is we don't have jetpacks because jetpacks suuuuuuuuuck. Paramotoring turns out to make a lot more sense. It may not be the picture in your head, but it can be real.

Also, we don't have flying cars because flying cars suuuuuuuuuck. We don't have heavy-duty voice interfaced computers because they suuuuuuuuuck. We even have the tech now for those, and they suuuuuuuuuck as the only interface. (They can work if you're dedicated and have no alternatives, as people program with pure voice interfaces, but they only use them because they're the best alternative they have.) Computer interfaces don't look like LCARS Star Trek interfaces because those interfaces suuuuuuuuuck. And so on.