That's a good point. How come we are still using http? I mean, the closest we've come AFAIK to something almost useful is ajax, but that's still not very good considering it's javascript... Maybe I'm unaware of some secret google development.
I guess, it's the agreeing on something and then adopting it and then having it catch the market part that's making this difficult.
On another field that I follow, we haven't had anything better replace MIDI for like 30 years...
That means if you want an analog like continuous change from 0 to max for some audio property, you get stepping instead.
It's also not very fast for todays work with tons of channels.
I doesn't know about audio at all, etc.
OSC is a better replacement, but not widespread enough.