[contingencies]

While adaptability as a device for expanding applications and market makes sense, your example of picking stuff up in a generic fashion also requires expensive and dexterous actuators, a reliable power source, plus knowledge of material properties and estimates of things like weight to facilitate an appropriate grip. Right now, that pushes costs higher than a manual deployment of dumb robotics (which will be generally faster, more reliable, and easier to maintain and hire for), which is why IMHO industry prefers dumb robotics. The reality is that most environments simply are not that dynamic, especially in industry.

[Qworg]

Not only that, industrial robots are chosen for repeatability, not speed. A flexible system necessarily doesn't take the most efficient path, and if it does, you'd just buy a dumb arm.