[agumonkey]

I remember that awkward thrill to see a student thesis from the 60s being more thoughtful than the latest vector drawing program from A. And I've toyed with a long list of advanced packages, none of them has that tiny geometry solver in them.

Time is surely not an arrow in progress. Lot's of colateral and inherited sub cultures are sucking energy. As you mentioned, a new 'market' is also a potentially huge drawback, but that's such a common thing. People will see the world their way, not as a PhD knowing the history and state of the art (even researchers don't know all).

It happens in programming languages too. All the web started a freeform joyful environments, unlike c++ or java with their heavyweight specs and standards. But then complexity hits and they're suddenly bringing a lot of structure, types, conventions, etc etc. It's like a child, who cannot enjoy his parents universe, he needs something compatible with his new mind.

ps: my latest 'the newest is less than the old' moment was realizing Haskell was specified in 1990. At that time mainstream users were given Windows 3.0 and DOS :)