[kamjam]

He should probably add "in the western world" to the article too. Go to any third world country, sub-Saharan African country or anywhere in South East Asia and you can see those forgotten skills at work everywhere. Labour is still very manual, everything still created mainly by hand. If something breaks it doesn't get thrown away, it gets fixed someway, even if it means some fabricated patch.

When machines are expensive, power is scarce (or unreliable) and much more difficult to transport - cheap labour will win.

I wholeheartedly agree with your post though. It may not be as common in the western countries as it used to be, but it is not lost.