I guess to me, progress is not measured by how much faster or appreciably successful a person is as opposed to how much better the overall human society has changed to benefit all mankind.

And this has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution does what works, not what we think is best. However, we do have the cognitive ability to develope ethics. But consider that we can only measure the time over which ethics has developed in hundreds of years, do you really think we can shed tens of millions of years just like that? Evolution is a contingent process. That is, where evolution can go is irrevocably entwined with its past. You can’t just turn instinct on/off like a switch.

Even by that definition, I suppose evolution has a sense of continual progress, but if we’ve reached a stage where certain societal behaviors, or if you wish, morals, can be accepted as best, why haven’t we been able to shed the instinct to break them?

Who determines what is best? Evolution cares not one jot what we consider best. I sense that you think we can control evolution. No way.