Technological Solutions which are Unbecoming the Twenty-First Century

• Umbrellas
• Sure, they work fine if there is no associated wind, not enough pedestrian traffic for umbrellas to cause significant hindrances, one isn't too concerned about one's feet, and doesn't mind having the sopping things sopping indoors everywhere.  
• Irons
• We still get wrinkles out of clothing by running over the fabric repeatedly with a piece of hot metal.  But if you do it wrong, the hot metal puts more wrinkles into the fabric than what you started with.
• Grass
• The classic method of decorating the space around one's home is with an uninteresting and high maintenance plant that doesn't last all year and isn't particularly well adapted to many of the climates in which it is cultivated.  Moreover, it only comes in green.  What's the good of having the technology to rapidly genetically modify plants if I can't have a purple lawn?