Here's my theory, in addition to the "missing technology" from this article: Romans just weren't very good scientists – as a society they just didn't value knowledge for the sake of knowledge, which is essential for science. "Roman" covers a vast span of time and region with many differences, but by and large, Roman attitudes were highly pragmatic and favoured practicality above all else, having little time and patience for non-practical matters.

People look at the colosseum, Roman roads, the size of the empire, and things like that and conclude the Romans were brilliant, and in some ways they were: they excelled at practical matters such as engineering, bureaucracy, organizing armies, committing genocides, you know, all those fun activities required to build an empire.

But good science isn't exclusively about practical matters: if "how can we build better buildings, roads, swords, ..." is all you're focused on then you're going to hit a wall pretty quick.

Did Einstein solve any sort of practical problem with special or general relativity? Not really; he was just exploring things for no other reason than the joy of figuring things out. It wasn't until much later that his work because practically relevant, in things like nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, GPS, etc.

The first water-pumping steam engines used a vacuum to pump up water. It's fairly straightforward, but ... you do need to know about vacuums and pressure – somewhat abstract concepts that don't really have any "obvious" practical applications in the same way that practical engineering improvements do.

I bet at least some of the "missing technologies" mentioned in the article weren't invented by the Romans for the same reason.

The industrial revolution happened when it did, at least in part, because knowledge for the sake of knowledge started being widely pursued.