It’s hard to fathom that someone at some point wouldn’t have thought, “*hmmm, maybe just standing in a big line waiting to get shot isn’t the most optimal tactic*”
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The alternative was worse. Black powder muskets create big clouds of smoke with every shot, and are inaccurate enough that it’s hard to hit anything without massed fire (and losses from enemy gunfire still were often fairly low.) An 18th-century battlefield was hazy, noisy, and terrifying, with no idea what was happening outside your area. Any reasonable soldier’s instinct would be to turn and run at the first sign of trouble, and militia frequently did just that. The only way to prevent total chaos was to drill tight formations over and over, wear high-visibility uniforms, play fife and drums to prove your unit was sort of in one piece, and maintain your line.
One of Napoleon’s innovations was a heavier focus on using skirmishers to harass and disrupt enemy formations, but he still knew there was no way around using line infantry in a major battle. Guerrilla tactics like those used in the American Revolution or Peninsular War could be effective over time, but only if you were willing to let the enemy seize your major cities and fight them painfully and slowly for years, which major powers mostly weren’t willing to do. It wasn’t until smokeless powder and improved artillery made it very easy to cause terrible casualties in packed lines that armies had to switch things up.
EDIT: Adding the role of cavalry. Until we had rifles and machine guns firing quickly and accurately enough to bring down horse-mounted soldiers, your only defense against getting slaughtered by a cavalry charge was forming a tight barrier tipped with something sharp (first pikes, later bayonet-tipped muskets.) Skirmishers were quite vulnerable to even light cavalry.
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