I think it's great that you asked this question. And it's also great that you made an analogy to plasma TVs. Plasma TVs are very expensive, blurry and unreliable, but everyone wants one.

In this month's Velonews, there is a great quote, " the unfortunate truth about carbon components is that they are no lighter or stronger than aluminum". I think this is the start of backlash against carbon. I have carbon components, an aero seatpost and ergo bars and stem that use the properties of carbon in ways that cannot be done with metals. But they are no stronger, and no lighter, than ally at 1/4 cost. I'm seeing investments in aluminum finishing technology so that they look cool, and can always be lighter and stiffer than carbon.

There are a lot of very expensive carbon cranksets that cannot be described as better than ally. As for frames, I have no doubt carbon will get much cheaper, in part due to expiring patents and limited suppliers of the actual carbon fibres increasing. But when it does get cheaper, the cool factor is gone and there will be a negative feedback loop. Theoretically, the layup and molding of CF can be automated, and may be easier than metal frames.
Remember, it wasn't that long ago that aluminum was considered a fad material and difficult to work with. Now robots weld these laser perfect.

For high end bikes, the future is likely newer alloys, like stainless, magnesium, etc. And it will likely continue that the trend will be to different materials for different components, and composite frames (Serotta).

I think Gizmo is a little naive, Taiwan has been hiring engineering consultants from Europe and the US for years. There is a lot of expertise in those companies, and often better than most. There are very good reasons why the highest stress component on a bike frame, the fork, is now almost 100% carbon across the industry, and most of those forks are quietly sourced in Asia. I know that if you want to build 100 components reliably, do it locally, but if you need to build 1000+ components with the same quality, head to Asia.