[drewcrawford]

> The problem of getting from the East coast to the West coast has not changed in 100 years

But computing problems _have changed_. Not necessarily in areas like problem size (although that has happened) but also in areas of usability and convenience.

A much more apt analogy would be: the problem of stopping at the grocery store after work is 50 years old, why can't I get an optimal set of directions that accounts for rush hour traffic in 2012? I can give you any number of reasons: we've built more roads, there are more drivers, travelling salesman turned out to be a hard problem, game theory is hard, etc. In some dimensions (cranking the car, proclivity of gas stations, etc.) the situation has improved, but solving some problems re-emphasize the ones we haven't solved.