I believe it could be advancing faster. This is due to the limited number of people within the 3D printing community. Most people build their printers and want to build 3D objects. The fastest and easiest way to do this is to purchase a kit or follow a design with a set BOM. This also means the majority of users are concentrated on established protocols because information about Reprap 3D printing is very scattered and the wiki isn't updated much. Most printers use the well established RAMPS 1.4 because it is well understood and compared to other electronics it is far more documented than say Gen6-7 boards. Far more powerful boards such as Smoothieboard or Azteeg X3/X5 are new and have far smaller user base. The entry into Reprap is not necessarily an easy or cheap one either. This prevents the majority from experimenting with brand new technology because of how finicky the machines are just to even print a 3D object. Therefore, there is much more development within the customization of 3D models than there is specifically in technology.

It is progressing though, paste extruders, filament extruders, new autoleveling features, are coming, but we need better documentation to really ignite the process.