Well one thing is that this standard only works for engineering breakthroughs. What new manipulation techniques did natural selection give us? Or the Copernican revolution? Or even Newton's laws of motion? Better ballistics would appear to fall into the non-fundamental category, no?

Also, it all still looks like a matter of degree to me. Does heavier than air flying count? We could still fly before the Wright brothers, just not as fast and not as heavy. Twenty years ago I couldn't have had back and forth written communication with hundreds of people in real time. That seems pretty new to me. What about the light bulb... surely a huge breakthrough, but oil lamps worked pretty damn well before then.