"The best solution to the problem"

I feel like we have lost the ability, or at least the desire, to ask ourselves "is this the best solution to the problem?" Even if we do ask the question, we often integrate current solutions into our answer, typically manifesting an improved answer, but not the best.

I'm not going to go into why or how we've arrived here, though I will have to think on those subjects, but allow me to illustrate some examples:

Money is the most renewable resource in the world. Time is the least. 99% of people work in a setup where they trade their least renewable resource for their most renewable one. In ancient bartering days, these people would be getting royally ripped off...thats like trading water for sand in the middle of the Sahara. How then, can I justify ever working an hourly job again? What is the solution?

If the combustion engine had never been invented, what would our solution be to the transportation issues we face? We all know we are using up exhaustible resources with our current solution, but all we are doing is improving what already exists; thatis switching to hybrid fuels, electric cars, etc. But they are still automobiles. What other solutions exist to get a person rapidly from A to B en masse?

What about housing? We use our homes to provide shelter from the elements, storage, a place to put a bed, park our cars, store and prepare our food, entertain, bathe ourselves, etc. If you made a list of all the functions a house performs, could you construct a better solution to the problem?

I will quote a friend, albeit abstractly, and paraphrase in this way:

"Am I willing to give up everything that I know in order to discover that which I don't?"