The reason no one has bothered to invent this before now, is because screw lifts work so well ( or WORKED so well...) that design settled into an intellectual “ eddy pool “ and didn’t make the jump to the obviously ( NOW anyway ) superior design of the Olds elevator. The reasoning behind it is an engineer’s insistence on practicality; ie: “ Why re-invent the wheel if you don’t have to?” . Think about the windshield wipers on your automobile: in the beginning, there were no windshield wipers ( autos weren’t driven in bad weather ) next came the hand cranked wiper, then came wipers operated using vacuum from the engine itself ( we were going faster and faster in our autos, so we needed both hands on the wheel and we had to use one of them to shift our brand new multi-geared transmissions!) Next!!! Electric motors for our wipers.... aaaannnnnd THEN??!?? Multi speed wipers - BOOM! That just happened! And then.... nothing for about thirty years. Why? Three speeds on your windshield wipers should be enough for anybody! No need to “ re-invent the wheel here Wilson! And then..... some guy, some where, toiling away in anonymity does something unbelievable: the intermittent wiper! HOLY MOLEY! What planet did this thing come from?!? Why had no one thought of this?!!?  No one even knew they needed this thing; now, there is not a car, truck ( Lorre or Ute for my friends where “ truck “ is a nonsense word. You know who you are ) commercial vehicle .... hell, anything with a windshield to wipe, has got intermittent wipers! So, there’s why the screw lift was never evolved into the Olds elevator until Mr. Olds invented it. Have a good one folks.