As for people being really stubborn in the face of obvious-in-retrospect improvements: some Russian peasants used sokha instead of a plough into the 19th c. despite their neighbours (say, German settlers) using actual ploughs for centuries. And of course their neighbours kept using oxen into the 19th c. despite the Russians heavily favouring the horse, which was a much stronger and more efficient animal for the purpose. And these weren't particularly different or even antagonistic cultures.
To expand on this point, here are some relevant bits from
Lord and Peasant in Russia: From the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (1971) by Jerome Blum:
"In the great steppes that reached to the south and east [of European Russia], field grass husbandry was in general use until the end of the eighteenth century. This wasteful technique, in which a field was cropped continuously for several harvests and then left untilled for as much as seven years or more before being worked again, was possible as long as these regions were thinly populated. As they filled up, field grass husbandry gave way steadily to the less wasteful -- albeit still inefficient -- three-field system." (p. 337)
"Because of its weight and inefficient design [the sokha] could only cut a shallow furrow, and could not turn over large clods nor thoroughly tear up weed roots. It was a poor tool at best, and it was particularly unsuited for working the heavy chernozem. Yet it continued to be used because it was cheap and easy to make and, most important, because the usual peasant lacked the animals needed to pull a heavier and more efficient plow. A somewhat better implement called the kosulia, midway in design between the sokha and true plow, was employed to a limited extent in the north and non-black earth center. Heavier than the sokha, but still able to be drawn by one horse, it cut deeper and was more effective in turning and breaking new land. In Little Russia (Kharkov, Poltava, Chernigov) the peasants used a heavy wheeled plow, called the saban, drawn by two or four horses, or four, six, and even eight oxen. In light soils, however, the Little Russians used the sokha, including a two-wheeled version of that implement. Heavier plows were also used in districts bordering Little Russia, and in New Russia and along the Middle Volga, where, probably, they had been introduced by the German colonists." (p. 339)
Blum, J. (1971).
Lord and peasant in Russia: From the ninth to the nineteenth century. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.