Satoshi (and many other OG members of bitcointalk) knew, and tried to improve the protocol. BTC was not set in stone at the beginning. It's just at some point Satoshi disappeared, and moonfags[1] who controlled the capital (miners and exchanges) weren't interested in any technical improvements that may make regulators more angry, causing the end of most innovation in the cryptocurrency space.

[1]Sorry for the very colloquial term, I don't know a better one. I mean people who care about cryptocurrencies only as a speculative "investment".