Indeed so.
Like the question of "where are the transitional species?" Everywhere. It's a continuous process of change. It's a long process, and very gradual. So no, you won't see those monkeys birthing humans. And why aren't monkeys turning into humans? If there's no ecological niche available, or the environmental pressures don't exist, any mutations may not be beneficial, so they won't get naturally selected.
And of course, apes -> humans assumes that we are the "better" direction for evolution. Based on the fossil record, I'd say that crocodiles are a much more successful form than us. They've been around for a few hundred times longer than we have, and haven't changed a whole heck of a lot. Natural selection has apparently found something that's quite effective at surviving.
Sure, they're certainly not terribly intelligent, but then that's also not what evolution does. Things that can continue to survive are what continue to survive, simple as that. We and our freakishly oversized brains seem to be good at surviving exposure to the environment, at least over the very short period we've been around.
Or if you are going to create some creatures, and give them the capacity for some level of self-determination and sentience, don't assign insanely archaic, contradictory, and bafflingly stupid rules to them, with eternal torture as the punishment for a "wrong" answer because it upsets your own mighty ego.