_For example, look at crypto algorithms like DES that, ten years ago, people thought would take thousands of years to crack given Moore's law growing computational resources._

Whitfield Diffie proposed triple DES in 1975 (even before the FIPS was published), because it was obvious even then that a 56 bit key would not be sufficient for long term security against attackers with serious financial/technological resources. EFF's Deep Crack broke a DES key in less than a day 13 years ago. The AES selection process started in 1998, and a winner finalized in 2001. I'm not sure where you're getting your history from here.