Speakers: Anything really new under the sun?

Full disclosure - Speaker designer / manufacturer

There are advances in materials all the time. Manufacturing process improvements help companies build products that are more consistent. Competition helps keep the costs down. Speaker technology keeps evolving but it's not always obvious to consumers. Foe example, there are companies that specialize in speaker voice coils or pole pieces. They may invest in more efficient assembly machines which allows them to make a better, more consistent product while keeping cost down.

We are a small speaker manufacturer and have invested considerable resources to design, develop and manufacture our own AMT drivers. Advances in adhesives, diaphragm architecture and substantial research of magnetic motor structures have allowed us to build AMT drivers that cover the range from 120 Hz to 24 KHz. Our speakers use digital crossover and room correction. Our woofers have a unique loading. We did not invent AMT drivers, DSP or pioneer driver loading. We did reinvent some existing technology, combined it with some relatively new technologies to build a very unique speaker system. New designs do happen.

There is ongoing development in many areas which can lead to new and innovative designs or improve the performance of more traditional designs.

I just recently bought a pair of Maggie's, and they are pretty much the same as they were in the 70's

Personally I would not upgrade them.
(It seems to be at best a minor sideways swap. There is no evidence that much has changed other than inflation.

For example, my 80s speakers were ~ $800, and are now $5650… and while they are on their 7th or 8th iteration, I think it would be more like the 10, 20 or the 40 k$ range to see a super obvious upwards change.)

If you like DSP, then you could go with powered speakers, or add a DSP.

I would look at some modest room treatment… and probably that would be after getting REW and microphone like a UMIK.

If you are going to upgrade passive speakers, then I suspect it is going to take more $2000. Hence; I would just suggest that you love them for what they are.

Getting active speakers removes the need for the amp, so selling the amp and speakers and going active, seems like another reasonable approach… but that will gobble up 2x-4x, of your 2k$ upgrade plan.
(Maybe you could get 1k for the speakers and amp.)

Check out the new PS Audio speakers. You can find some great videos on ayouTube to see them in action at folks homes and hear PS Audiobtalk about them. Very interesting and new. Revel make some great more affordable speakers.  You can get them from Crutchfueld 

The first commercially available speaker using DSP came out in 1991.  Change in the speaker industry over the last 20 years has been more evolutionary than revolutionary.  However, the pace has increased due to increased capacity for modelling and evaluation of ideas, and the rapidly increasing rate at which knowledge spreads.

However, if the question is about the history of Monitor Audio, here's their version of it: https://www.monitoraudio.com/en/about-us/timeline/.  A lot of it is model introductions, but there are plenty of references to incorporation of new (to MA) technologies.