Does the smoke from Rome burning go on ascending forever and ever? No, It would be fair to say no one sees it, but it will ascend forever and ever from Babylon the Great when it is destroyed. Rev.19:3 Is Rome still there? Yes. Babylon the Great will never be found again once she is destroyed. Rev. 18:21
That's faulty logic, denying meaning to a text merely because its predictions did not come to pass. It's a false prophecy. Just like Daniel. Did Antiochus Epiphanes IV die while attacking Jerusalem, with Michael the Archangel rising up as the new king and with the resurrection of the dead all occuring in 163 BC? No. It is for that very reason that people to this day try to twist and tweak the prophecy to fit events in their own day, because the original predication failed to come to pass. Whatever current relevance you contrive from the book will pale in comparison to its original purpose. It was written to offer solace to Christians in AD 95 or so, who faced persecution by Romans and the temptation of the Emperor cult (the idolatry of the Beast). It was not written for people 2,000 years later to extract symbolism to construct new prophecies about their own day.