No, like all management fads, it just needed time to percolate. Now that software is so big, people who grew up in the agile domain have been promoted through the stacks to general engineering managers and have taken Agile with them. This means that folks in the hardware domain are now having to explain that you can't just keep iterating on ASIC's because it is really freakin expensive to make iterations.

It's the exact same trajectory that happened with Lean Six Sigma. It starts out as a good idea in a specific area. People start making money on managerial self help selling based on the idea. Market saturates. Product is pushed into other areas to keep growth. Engineering management idea becomes cult-like. New method comes onto scene and starts to displace the old.