That's exactly what inventing is about: making (existing) things better, until they're so much better, they become a different thing altogether.
Denying reality is for daydreaming; it will not get anything invented. Sufficiently advanced technology may be indistinguishable from magic, but it isn't actually magic.
If you want actual wings, that's just one of those problems that need absurd amounts of money and brains to figure out. Genetic engineering is certainly a lot more difficult than inventing Nitrocellulose.
I don't understand your point at all. When something sounds far-fetched / difficult / expensive it means it's actually more interesting rather than less.
However, after rereading it, I disagree with the top comment that said that "Centuries ago, it was easier to think of things to invent".
It's never easy to think of something to invent. Finding the problem, even just thinking there might be a problem where noone sees any, is a big part of any invention.
Also, in the past, inventions required a much larger leap of thinking than today. When we speak today about growing wings on creatures born without it, we kind of accept the idea, because we know it's already possible to grow eyes on flies' legs for example.
But inventing the steam engine, or disproving "spontaneous generation" and inventing vaccines, sound to me much more impressive because those people went where no one had dared go before them.
People are crazy inventive and always have been. But today, it is far easier than it ever was before to learn about the best inventions others already figured out instead of reinventing the wheel.
La Bruyère in 1690 wrote a very famous phrase "Tout est dit, et l'on vient trop tard depuis plus de sept mille ans qu'il y a des hommes et qui pensent." (Everything has been said, and we're too late after 7000 years of human existence and thought.)
I can't find the quote right now but Aristotle complained once that the level of comfort attained in his era and city was so high nobody would ever conceivably want more.
It's fairly obvious that the breadth of human ingenuity is infinite and that there are orders of magnitude more inventions to make than have been made.
Not all inventions are useful; one could argue humanity would be much better without television, Facebook or nuclear bombs for example. But one just needs to look around to see how our world is inadequate and broken.
Take transportation: today we use huge metal cages (cars) or metal tubes (planes) to move a bunch of ape-like creatures from one place to another, at great expense and risk. Why can't we fly? We say we fly when we're in a plane, but we don't; we are flown. I want wings (or something) that let me take off and land using my body's energy, just like a bird.
I don't know if individual flying can be achieved using genetic engineering or by building a contraption that one can operate with his arms or legs, etc., but I do know that cars / planes / boats / etc. are a ridiculous and laughably overkill solution to the problem of personal transportation.