One small correction/addition! While the pointing machine is 18th century, the practice of pointing itself is quite a lot older. Its precursor was the three-compass method, which was known in antiquity and recovered in the 15th century. In fact, if you look closely at Michelangelo's David, you can see the little holes on the marble used for pointing.

That said, actual Gothic sculpture and decoration fell into that gap when pointing was lost. And the frankly lower quality of most medieval sculpture more or less reflects that. And anyway, nothing wrong with neo-Gothic.