The game was set before the Divinity RPGs, so advanced technology had to be destroyed or lost at some point, to explain it not existing, or just starting to be implemented, in the games set later in the timeline. Larian either needed to write it into the ending of Dragon Commander, or do a hand wave '9 thousand years, stuff happens' whenever it was brought up.
In addition to GOG notifications, there is an auto-updater for the game.
Thanks, I suppose that is something.
