@ PsiStar: Did you just seriously said that we dont really need faster cellphone data transfer rates than what we have now!?
Also you guys talk as of we are riding a wave of advanced technology, let me remind you that we dont even have the technology to produce a printer that can print a color portrait every second, or a scanner that can scan a newspaper page in 1 second.... Pathetic really!
HOOOOOGAN!
That out of the way, here's the short and curlies.
Technology is not a one-source deal KK. You are right in saying that we may reach a limit in what our current material science can provide in the realm of improving our technology, but at the same time, Vaccume tubes were not the last form of electronic components in our society. We "found" silicon semiconductors and the punch-card got replaced by the silicon wafer.
Although we may not be able to get atomic circuitboards to work simply because of the proximity of the components in such high density producing almost atomic scale interactions that are not a problem in our microscopic scale technological instruments, I do not see things really slowing up yet.
At least, not because of materials.
The main slow-up is like what was said. Although you want a 1 second printout, it is not an ECONOMICAL solution. Who NEEDS that now? Who NEEDS a full video, HD, to be transmitted in 10 seconds? We are not talking about Modem days where a 12 MEG map would take 20 minutes to load (UT99!!), but still, we are at the point where we can stream what we want, at the rate we need it, without many problems (Netflix as an example). There are very few things that we REALLY need to stream on our phones, or even at our homes, that need more than that right now.
You also give the example of the cardboard motorcycle, which is a good example, but not in the way you intended. Our scientists and engineers are given a bunch of cardboard to work with. They know that material won't do it, so they look for a way to get or produce another. They put carbon in their iron for steel. They put chrome in that steel to make it stainless, they find out how different materials work and act and start assembling the basics.
The steel rod becomes the alumninum tube becomes the truss frame that holds the polimer wing that allows them to fly.
You stay with cardboard and you get a really neat fort.