Why can we not look back and see the formation of the universe?

The limiting factor is that the universe was opaque to all forms of electromagnetic radiation for the first few hundred thousand years. So the earliest thing we can possibly see is the the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB).

Modern telescopes are becoming very powerful. They can peer into deepest space and see galaxies when they were very young. This is due to the time taken for light to travel the vast distance to Earth and be viewed through our telescopes. In effect, you are looking back in time. The only limitations to 'seeing' the beginning of the Universe is that modern telescopes still aren't quite powerful enough and in the very young universe there was no light, so nothing to see.

We can. The only problem is that our optical telescopes are not powerful enough to see what happened 12 billion years ago. They cannot resolve images 12 billion light years away. Our radio telescopes can detect evidence of the Big Bang in the form of the microwave background radiation, which is the radiation from the explosion of the big bang, redshifted so that the wavelength is now relatively long microwaves.

Some reasons:

The light has yet to reach the Earth.

The light from the formation of the universe has already reached Earth in the past.

Nobody knows what region of space in which the big bang took place.

You can only look back so far and remember, things changed with time. Before the stars and such formed, the universe was awash with radiation and light. That radiation and light is still here, but the universe has expanded so much that it is present as the cosmic backround radiation. That's the best we can do as far as looking back and right now it's no longer light; it's relatively long wavelength microwaves.

Because it's still expanding at an uncontrollable rate of speed. When it stops doing this it will then reverse in direction and "implode" upon us. Think of it like stretching a rubber band. When it comes back you will see the begining of the universe for a few seconds then you and me too will get dead.

Hope this helps.

You are correct in your theory. The problem is that I believe it was either so far away that we haven't seen it yet or that light already reached Earth before we were around to see it.

Kind of like the movie Deja Vu that's out. You only get one chance to see that point in the past. If you miss, it's gone forever.

Because you are not standing 14 billion light years away from it.

because it's extremely far away......