I think we are on the upswing but there are many things that could be improved, primarily in coaching. Our improvement since the 90s is all from better coaching but there's much more work to do.
We now have multiple kids in high school running low 8:40s every year and collegians running in the 13:15 range. When we have several high schoolers mixing it up in the mid 8:20s, and several collegians in the high 12:50s, our pros will be able to punch it out with Ethiopia and Kenya. Our national federation should be figuring out how to close this gap, because taking a post-college guy from 13:15 to 12:40 is a big ask, as is getting a high school kid from 13:50 to 12:55 in college. They have to start at a higher level, which means the improvement has to come at the youth level. Our pros have great support systems and there are diminishing returns there, so a national training center, while nice, is unlikely to make a big difference. I'm sure the Nike campus in Beaverton has some of the best facilities in the world. If this made a huge difference, the Africans would all be training there. Most of them are training on dirt roads and dirt tracks in the middle of nowhere.
The talent is there, look at Hobbs Kessler. There are more Kesslers out there that need to be found, recruited, and developed. The desire is there. How many people still come to this website in their 40s and 50s because the sport grew on them? You think this passion is any less for our young athletes than it was for us? The passion has to be nurtured by good coaching because nobody wants to give the effort that track requires if they don't see results. Most runners never see a dime of income from the sport and yet we're able to turn out hundreds of thousands of kids every year who just want to see how fast they can run. Many of them stick with it as long as they keep getting faster.
The majority of our running programs at the youth level are still awful and don't develop their kids at all. A large number of our collegiate programs are abusive meat grinders. We can do much better, and when we do, we'll get better results.