well to keep on topic here
In my professional opinion:

lithium was never a good choice for battery options, they are dangerous period, lithium is unstable.
IMO the ONLY reason Li-Ion was developed is because of their ability to 'fast charge' and their power range curves being better than lead acid. Thats about it
Consumers wanted a battery they could charge fast to turn the lift operation around quicker and eliminate the handling of batteries by having to change a battery, not to mention the extra cost of buying extra batteries in the first place.
The trade off being the risk/danger of fires and also the fact their recycleability being poor and lets not forget they are expensive, the downsides that imo are not worth what you get.
As for the future of them? unless engineers come up with a better solution i'm sure they will continue to push down this shaky path trying other pointless updates while consumers still have to deal with the instablity of lithium and fire hazards associated with it.