This article makes the point. The fungus has no quick propogation methods, as it's only spread by moving infected earth: it's simply very resilient once established.

So the last X years have been a slow motion "We know this is a problem. It's becoming a bigger and bigger problem. Eventually it will be an insurmountable problem."

The article also notes that there were a substantial number of "flex years" the last time this happened, as deforestation was used to open up new, un-infected land for banana cultivation.

In summary: it's like the IPv6 problem.

We knew it was coming, but resource exhaustion takes time.

Biology, ecology, geology, and cosmology all work on their own timescales. :)

Still has to go through all the usual trials, etc, before it can be grown commercially, and then there'd be questions over GM regulation, market-acceptance, and whether the crop is productive and easy to manage for commercial growers to sort. (Usual productisation questions for a new crop variety to have to jump through.)

Nature exploits opportunities. If we're still planting monocultures of cloned plants (plus whatever genes), that's still going to be enticing prey. See: Roundup resistant weeds.

And life, as they say, finds a way.

The only thing you get from this is annoying humans, which doesn't sound a very good evolutionary strategy (second only to being used in Chinese traditional medicine)

I honestly think this story recurs so often not because it's comparatively important, but because it's a grabby hook of a story and because James Dale of the Queensland University of Technology (who is quoted in every instance of the story I've seen) has an incredibly tenacious publicist.