Improving battery technology is an expensive and slow process.
Getting lab-ready stuff into a production line can literally take decades. It usually doesn't, but five to ten years is considered really, really good performance.
Heck, this goes for pretty much all Technology. The main reason we've seen such rapid improvements in the IT industry is not because it's the norm, but because we ran into a technology which had massive space for improvements at minimal costs. Basically we (as in humanity) lucked out there because normally tech development takes ages.
Battery tech is a great example of this:
Ni-Cad batteries where first developed in 1899, but only made it into consumer applications in 1946 (almost fifty years!). Ni-Mh was developed first in the 1970's, but took till the end of the 80's to even start appearing in consumer devices (about fifteen years).
Likewise, the current and 'high-tech' Li-Ion batteries where developed first around 1983 and took till around 1998-2000 to start appearing in consumer products en-masse (about seventeen years).
If the recent (2007) breakthrough in the use of nano-wires follows this norm (and I don't see why not), we can expect to see consumer applications of it around 2020.
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