As far as aircraft being too simplified (ie - taildraggers vs. nosewheels)... I remember reading an old article (year 1920?) about (then) 'modern' cars with centrifugal advance mechanisms that were taking too much control away from real drivers who used manual spark advance.
I can't imagine anyone today arguing that mastering an advance lever makes one a better driver.
It's probably a natural hubris for each generation to feel that all of their old, hard-won skills are still relevant and that today's young whippersnappers are missing out.
I know I feel that way about my computer skills. But I can't honestly say that my 25-year-old knowledge of an Apple ][ makes a difference today. Just like the working knowledge of vacuum tubes and magnetic-core memory wasn't relevant to me then. There are techs coming on-line today who have never used a computer with less than 64megs of memory (heck, their cell-phones have more memory than my first computer). Yet some are as good as, or better than, me.
The difference is not their history, it's their (and my) analytical skills. The superior techs have superior diagnostic abilities. The average techs don't. And playing with old hardware won't always level the field.
The point? It's not what was learned, but who is learning.
The same is true of airplanes - Richard Bach argued that those who didn't fly open-cockpit biplanes, who stayed within enclosed cockpits and listened for a stall-warning horn rather than the wind in the wires, were sorely lacking. I guess that makes ultra-light flyers the best pilots of all.
Pick radios, for example. It must have been frustrating to have struggled so hard to master the four-course radio range, to tweak a 'coffee-grinder' radio just so to discern the A's and N's from the background static, only to have some newbie come along with a VOR, turn a knob, and fly a more accurate course ("Damn young brats! They have no idea what REAL navigation is!"). Kind of makes all that hard work seem like a waste of time....
For myself, I prefer Wayne Westerman's approach - each new advance is welcomed with open arms. The prior knowledge is not a waste, but rather a source of appreciation for how much easier a GPS is over a VOR (or ADF, or four-course range...). Of how much easier nosewheels are to land than taildraggers, or how more reliable engines have become, or easier to start with electrics vs flywheels and hand-props... and the list could go on and on.
The same is true in my other passion of skydiving. I once jumped a round parachute from a DC-3, just like the days of old. Later that day I ran into Lew Sanborn. He is the original skydiver, license number ONE! (Mine is 21550...). Been jumping everything for 50+ years. I figured if anyone would wax nostalgic and appreciate my round jump, it would be him. Instead he cuffed me on the shoulder and berated me - "Jumped a round?!? What the hell did you do that for? Once the square canopies were invented I never jumped a round again! I wouldn't be jumping today - my knees couldn't take it!"
I don't think things are getting dumber - they're just getting better!
