Nothing mysterious about it if you were formally taught how the manufacturing etc works, there were people receiving awards for scientific and technical advances all the way, in fact if we were involved in it, we usually felt and were lamenting things were not happening fast enough.
Moore's law was actually more of a lament, that things would take so long, rather than a warning they would happen quick.
My own involvement started in the late eighties by which time a lot of it the things you mention were already done, but we've watched and waited whilst things like blue LEDs, enabling the white LED revolution to happen and things like that, come around, that seemed a long time, to get from red LEDs to blue, but in hindsight it might look rapid I guess.