I wonder if it could still be usurped by another standard that is somehow more popular. If adoption of that leapfrogs over IPV6 then maybe it will have just been a waypoint along the way.
It will not. People underestimate the amount of effort went into IPv6 implementations.
This absolutely can and should happen
What would a new standard do that would make it more popular? IPv6, for all its faults, is designed to be the last Internet Protocol we will ever need.