I think it's more like Roman concrete. There are many creative engineering possibilities that simply aren't used anymore because there are so many jellybean parts on the shelf that can brute-force a solution without much creativity.

Much in the same way, I find many software engineers these days don't actually know much about how a computer or a computer network works.

Engineering is starting to become less about being masters of the physical world, and more like a discipline in gluing blocks together.