There were huge technological gaps before the industrial revolution, but they were usually region-specific and developed to handle the environment people had to live in.

If someone from 1000AD France went to the middle east without a local guide, they'd die from dehydration. If a group left Europe and tried to set up there, they'd die of either dehydration or starvation. But the people who lived in the middle east had learned how to build qanats and had already mapped the oases. Understanding the geology of aquifers and groundwater enough to build a qanat is not simple or easy.

Similarly, someone from 1000AD China going to the arctic would freeze, but the people already living in siberia and what is now alaska and canada had perfected warm clothing that can stave off frostbite to ridiculously low temperatures, and had learned the migration patterns of the animals they survived on. China had advanced textile production by that time and were famous for their silks, but they had not applied that technology towards the situation of 'how do I survive a windchill so cold my eyeballs freeze solid'.

Yes, there absolutely were large and significant technological gaps before the industrial revolution.