Missing pieces

I came across an article by David Rotman that describes W. Brian Arthur's efforts to understand why it takes so long to commercialize new technologies... and I was drawn to the following statement of why "lab on a chip" technologies weren't commercialized back in the 90s:

"The problem, as Arthur might put it, was that the toolbox was missing key pieces."

It occurs to me that this is the reason the status quo in software development remains the status quo... New and better approaches are all around us, but the incomplete nature of a new approach leads to its rejection.

Case in point, a few years ago I penned my frustration that Java developers resisted the adoption of BPM technologies on my java.net blog.  I got a huge number of mostly angry comments... but they all really boiled down to missing features in the BPM tools.  The BPM tools were more primitive than the "state of the art" development tools, and those missing features invalidated the advantages of BPM.

The BPM toolboxes were missing key features.

A lot has happened in the ensuing years, and the BPM toolboxes are much, much better... but I still wonder if there aren't just a few key features that we're missing that would really make the "Business drives IT" promise of BPM a reality.  It's great that "real" programmers are now comfortable with BPM suites, but I maintain my allegiance to making a BPM suite as natural for a Business person to use as a spreadsheet.

What key pieces are missing?  What are the few nifty tools that will enable those "Power Business User" to keep control of their BPM projects?

I've got my own thoughts on the subject... but I'd love to know what others think.