In all honesty wouldn’t we? We might have been refining sails and sailing for a millennium, but only recently did we get steeled hulled container ships with vastly different hull profiles and CFD modeling to tell us what’s actually effective.
Biplanes worked great for most of the history of aviation, but we can do better now with math.
> only recently did we get steeled hulled container ships with vastly different hull profiles
The hull shape of a steel hulled windjammer is not vastly different from a modern container ship of similar size. Very similar length/beam/draft ratios, both have pretty "boxy" hull shape midships. The big difference is the bulbous bow, which doesn't make much of a difference at the lower speeds a sailing ship spends the vast majority of its time, and of course the stern with the propeller.
> Biplanes worked great for most of the history of aviation
To nitpick, if we consider the age of flight to start with the 1903 Wright flyer, biplanes were mostly obsolete by the mid-1930'ies. So about 30 years out of a so far total of 118 years.
Biplanes worked great for most of the history of aviation, but we can do better now with math.