You make a really excellent argument! People have been in essence vaping weed via hookah and shisha for a long time. Mixing weed into your shisha doesn't result in a full combustion. The steam chalice tweaked the design to remove the shisha, but it was still in essence the design borrowed from something that's been used since antiquity. But it was still like the invention that basically every stoner in the world, let alone anyone who visited Jamaica, had in their head

The modern electronic vape movement, which arguably started in coffee shops in Amsterdam in the 90's, started introducing electronic temperature control. Which imo is what I mean when say modern vaping.

But yeah, don't disagree with you at all. I would maybe say forced air was never developed beyond volcano cause they patented it and very aggressively protect it.