First, the science and engineering is interesting regardless. Better understanding of superconductivity and how we can achieve it will be helpful in applying it anywhere. Second, while RT is clearly a huge deal hotter is always better if possible. It means it can be used with less cooling in more extreme environments which would further expand the possibilities in industry. Just as there has been effort to make (and you can buy) electronics that are functional in extreme environmental and high radiation conditions that would kill consumer kit.
Also, "achieved" is doing quite a bit of work in your second sentence. Other material properties, including as you say operating pressure but also more basic stuff like pure flexibility or strength are important in how it can be used in practice right? Research pushing other limits may pay off down the road in new ideas elsewhere. Obviously speculative, it may not, but it's well worth pursuing many avenues in such a potentially valuable area even if most are dead ends.
Liquid Nitrogen : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen
Search: 'High Pressure Liquid Nitrogen Superconductors' @DDG : <https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='High Pressure Liquid Nit...>
Railgun : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
>A railgun is a linear motor device,
typically designed as a weapon, that uses electromagnetic force to launch high velocity projectiles.<*
Scramjet : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet
Just a Thought.
Edit: Add; Russia-Ukraine Conflict Prompted US to Develop Autonomous Drone-Swarms And 1,000-Mile Cannon :
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russia-ukraine-co...
- Edit:2 fixed @DDG search URL, truncated in first edit!
See first sentence of article we're commenting on
The temperature, current density and magnetic fields they can tolerate while remaining superconducting varies between the various kinds of superconductors.
Most interesting use-cases outside the lab would involve at least non-trivial current densities, so that's one metric where one might still want to search for a better material even though one already exists.
Additionally, quench propagation is much slower in HTS so safe current dumping has a lot more time between quench detection and thermal runaway.
My point was that if the current material only supports very low current densities at this high temperature, then that restricts the use-cases for it. I feel much of the popular science press makes it sound like all superconductors are equal, apart from the critical temperature.
Surely room temp at atmosphere is the ultimate prize? Room temp has already been achieved so I would have thought lowest pressure is now the metric that matters