yeah wallet format, segwit, batching, etc. all mainchain throughput increases done with a soft fork. 
This isn't even talking about the different layers which unlock a whole lot more. 

Trying to keep up with hardware through hard forks was never going to work. 
There's a reason why Bitcoin mogs everyone else. 
Keeping data for frivolous transactions doesn't scale.
Eth was smug as hell until they ran into a wall. 
If xmr ever gets going they'll do the same.