User blog comment:Legionwrex/Has Mass Effect reached it's peak in Technological Advancement?/@comment-1440333-20130301002404/@comment-1440333-20130301003405

I think the point with the Reapers is what they have works, and they don't want the organic races to advance beyond them, and instead want them to follow in their footsteps and spread and multiply throughout the galaxy for the harvest. As a result because the Reapers are not working to improve their 'trap technology' (for lack of a better term) they also don't need to improve their own that much. The Catalyst AI would see what they have as being efficient enough, and working on advancing their tech when they don't need to would be a waste of resources.

However saying that I think recent cycles would cause that opinion to change. The Protheans couldn't be harvested, and so had to be conventionally exterminated - taking time and resources that may have weakened them for the current cycle. Then they have to come to the galaxy using FTL due to the Ilos group's machinations on the Citadel, the Crucible was completed, and Shepard and humanity allied the other races to create significant opposition to them. Presumably if they had defeated this cycle they would have done some rethinking to prepare for the next.