Still, while I ride a bike that would not have looked out of place in 1890 when viewed from a distance, on closer inspection a lot of things have been improved. Perhaps most importantly, all of the newer materials are better, including high performance steel, aluminum, tires, and so forth. Hydroforming and carbon fiber layup have finally made it possible to experiment with more interesting frame shapes.
And I'm certainly not averse to trying one someday -- N+1 and all that. There's a shop in my locale dedicated to them. However, I think the mass market for bikes has diverged from the racing world. Most bikes sold today are of styles such as cruisers, hybrids, and low tech mountain bikes, that are unrelated to racing categories. Even many racing style bikes such as gravel and cyclo are bought with the intention of using them "off label" if you will, just because they look comfortable and rugged. So the UCI isn't holding us back any more.
Hell, there's the whole category of e-bikes. That's probably the biggest threat to the market for more efficient human powered bikes.
http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/superpos.htm
https://www.bikeradar.com/features/top-five-banned-tech-the-...
Check out Mike Burrows for some interesting bike designs. Check out the Battle Mountain speed records for what the highest performance bikes look like.