Our whole society has the biggest snake oil jones of all....that the
new and improved consumer product really _ is_ an improvement. Usually
each new generation of consumer product-and often commercial ones as
well- are mixed improvements. Ask any VCR tech (I should say _former_
VCR tech) who will explained how the early toploaders were nearly
indestructible and highly repairable with crude electronic performance,
the early frontloaders were well made and superior in performance, and
current ones are low end ****boxes that are not even worth opening for
cleaning, they are totally nonrepairable plus being inferior
electronically. TV sets and car radios have worse RF sections than late
tube and mid-life solid state ones. Cars have engine and transmission
castings far less rugged and rebuildable than cars of 40, 30, or even
20 years ago.