It pretty much is, you can't forget that an exponential curve looks the same no matter how much you "zoom" in. It takes ten thousand years to go from stone to bronze, a thousand years from bronze to iron, and then merely a few hundred years to go from simple steam coal mine pumps to nuclear-heated steam-electric turbines. You don't see an enormous change in quality of life for the average person, but the reality is that each of these advancements absolutely rocked their contemporary world. Combined with how technological advancement only takes hold with economic incentive (steam engines have been around for a thousand years, their uses have not) you get what looks like very little progress until just now. But in reality there was constant independent innovation and improvement around the world.

Yep. The big thing is food availability. Large horse breeds can't subsist purely off grass, there just aren't enough calories in there. Supplementing with grain, however, works quite well. Even without intentional selective breeding, domestication improved their food prospects enough to enable larger and larger horses

Just a couple hundred really. Selective breeding is typically quite quick, as evidenced by the English bulldog. Wasn't that long ago they were just a little shorter and stouter than regular dogs

Because they don't display better behaviors or intelligence as compared to poor families. Plenty of rich drug abusers, flunkies, idiots, and every other negative trait commonly pinned on those with less financial means.

Rich people just don't get hurt by it because they've got the cash to brute force past their problems. Drugs? Go away to a 5 star rehab facility better than most hotels. Job loss? Who cares, the passive income alone is enough for multiple families. Wasting money? Well, easiest way to become a millionaire is to start as a billionaire. Even crimes don't matter if someone's rich enough