Not so sure about things being as rational as you make out. The book I'm reading at the moment has some paragraphs about the competition between electrical cars and internal combustion powered cars back a century ago.
Up until about 1913 when Cadillac invented the electric starter most cars sold were electric, not ic cars. You basically needed to employ a driver mechanic to keep ic vehicles on the road and they were noisy, dirty and expensive. In contrast electric cars were reliable, relatively cheap and fast - even back then there were electric cars that could reach speeds of around 100kph. But in about ten years, up till the early 20's, the cost of ic cars dropped to a quarter of what they were in 1911. GM and the other ic manufacturers also played dirty by buying up all the electric tram and bus companies in the major US cities and closed them down, forcing people to buy private cars. So the push for electric vehicles was largely snuffed out by a more agressive competitor.
My point is that the ic car was not obviously the best technology, but once it gained the upper hand it quickly became the dominant technology.
Same with Bill Gates. He did not invent DOS and the only reason he got to buy it was that IBM did not place much importance on operating systems. And if you listen to the computer geeks his own product, windows, is not the best, but it quickly became the dominant technology. Once the big software companies started to base their products on windows then everyone needed to buy windows and as everyone was using windows then that reinforced to software companies to continue basing their software on windows.
There is a tipping point soon to be reached with lithium. Once (or perhaps if) enough of the major electronics and auto makers adopt lithium as the future for batteries it becomes a tad irrelevant if a slightly better technology comes along. With all the committed investment time and money in lithium, companies will not ditch it readily.
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