It seems more to me that every time society managed to reach a certain level of development and progress, it ended up getting hit by a Calamity which in turn lead people to question their old ways and completely discard them (usually burning libraries in the process). You see this with the early theocratic societies prior to the Third Umbral Calamity, Allag prior to the Fourth Umbral Calamity, and Mhachi/Amdapor/Nym prior to the Sixth Umbral Calamity. It sounds like there's a lot of knowledge being completely lost on each reset and subsequently redeveloped from scratch.

I do find it interesting that every time society becomes sufficiently advanced, it also usually ends up consorting with Voidsent, which rarely ends well. You see this with Allag, Mhachi, and Garlemald. Although that might ultimately be from Ascian influence. Loghrif in particular seems to have a really interesting void connection.

On a tangential point, I'm floored by the amount of little lore pieces locked away behind the sightseeing log and triple triad cards. I wonder if they could do something similar with collectible books to expand out some sort of 'knowledge log'. Perhaps you get a lore entry after you've found the required set of books. FFVIII did something similar with hidden periodicals, if I remember correctly.