Our solar system is +-4bn years old, so there have been only cca 3 previous generations of similar stars (and it's kind of nice to have heavier elements from the first generations of stars in abundance - I would expect forming life just from He and H wouldn't work well).

Let's ignore the 'bn' part - this place is 14-old. Our system is 4-old. Life is 3-old. Multi-cellular is 2-old. Sentient is 0.00001 old. With usual star life has +- 10 to escape, or it will be destroyed. It doesn't sound so far-fetched to me.

But maybe it's all different - plenty of life all around the place, even super smart & evolved, but maybe speed of light simply can't be broken no matter what. That would dampen any rise of galactic civilization. Or some other unbreakable constraint.