Often their reason for new people working on these technologies is the complete opposite of what you said. People often research why these things were abandoned, find that other advances have removed the blockage, and find that further progress can be made. For example, batteries may still suck, but they are so much lighter, denser and cheaper than a few decades ago that anything that was blocked by poor batteries is certainly worth revisiting today.
I'd say that the opposite often arises, that someone finds a way to improve an old idea and automatically assumes this will solve the problems with it.
In the case of trams there were two really serious gotchas - The services in the road had to be relocated, and that the rails are a death trap to bicycles. Possibly not too clever for motorcycles or horses either.
In the case of wind energy, early promoters actually claimed that intermittency wouldn't be a problem if they were deployed continent-wide.
Turns out that's not the case, and if they'd asked any aviator or met man they'd have known that high pressure regions can span vast areas. (I suspect they
did know but were careful not to let slip to politicians)
They're now trying to push more wind investment on the strength that backup batteries
will solve the intermittency. Thing is, that might be possible, or might not be, but it's jumping the gun because batteries on that scale haven't been developed yet. Let's see proof that it is feasible this time!
Electric cars, the elephant in the room seems to be that electricity supplies are going to be barely enough for ordinary needs if we have to go 100% renewable, and yet they want to shift the transport energy demand onto that source as well? Let's be sensible now, this is trying to get not one but two quarts out of a pint pot.