Is it likely that bitcoin will implement important changes in the future?
many newer coins that solve some of the shortcomings of bitcoin and
  extend the possibilities


This is technically false; hence this question stems from wrong information.

If you can present a superior algorithm/protocol in your question(purely the explanation minus all buzzwords) community will consider it. Point is, if it exists out there, probably the core devs have considered it already. All the discussion is public w.r.t IRC logs so those might help understand shortcomings of various protocols that asker is arguing for.