I finally got around to reading that. Asimov has always been a favorite writer of mine. That essay is short and to the point. I agree, things nowadays are less wrong. However, with each step progression slows down as the amount of knowledge required to take the next step increases. Fortunately, research and the amount of scientists is increasing.
They say we stand on the shoulders of giants, but nowadays most Nobel scientists work among giants and have giant research teams and giant budgets, too. Think of things like ITER and CERN these aren't basement projects.
There are definitely people in history who stand out, but I fear it is diminishing and I think computers, Internet and now more recently, AI are progressing things beyond what a single person is capable of doing.