I, too, grew up in the 50's and have fond memories of the stuff. However, as much as I loved my Schwinn Corvette (I delivered a lot of papers to pay for it), my own son's Trek was definitely superior. The clamp-on-your-shoes skates I had can't hold a candle to the roller blades my daughter had. The New Balance running shoes my son had are vastly superior to the Converse I had. My wife, an aficianado of young children's books, has a fine collection of old ones but tells me there are wonderful new ones being written every year. So it's not all decline and ruin in the kid's world.
That's true, nor in the adult world, either. A couple of examples to follow: Classic cars are simpler and can be worked on by the owner, but how many 50's era Yank Tanks would run as many miles with as little maintenance as a (quality) car of today? But of course, when it finally does break you have a major expense ahead in time and money. Hollow-state TV's used to go down at least once or twice a year, mostly due to bad tubes. Today's solid state jobs will run for years without problems, but eventually they go, and are rarely worth fixing. Have you noticed how few radio-TV repair shops there are these days?
There is a lot of junk out there, but quality stuff can be had if you look for it and are willing to pay the price. In many ways, technology has displaced the need for precision craftmanship. A good example of this would be to compare the National HRO receiver's dial mechanism to a modern solid state digital display.
Unfortunately, much of the technically sophisticated stuff is designed to be throw-away and irrepairable.
But remember, Crumb made his observation during the 50's, referring to that generation of mass produced consumer goods. I grew up in that era too and had exactly the same impression he had. I had already taken an interest in radio, and couldn't help but notice how much better constructed pre-WW2 broadcast radios I found in the dump were than "modern" (50's era) sets. That helped spark my interest, from a very young age, in vintage radio. By the time I had graduated from high school I was already on the lookout for 1920's three-dial TRF's (which were largely still considered worthless junk back then before the nostalgia craze had caught on).
In the 50's, today's high tech solutions had not yet been developed, but cheap, cost-cutting, stick-it-to-the-consumer mass production had, so a lot of junk was produced, still using decades old technology. Remember the long tank-like automobiles of circa 1960 with the ridiculous tail fins and frequent breakdowns? Tubes-on-circuit-board electronics? The "All-American five" ac/dc broadcast radio with one side of the power line connected directly to the chassis, relying only on the easily-breakable plastic case to protect the user from electrocution?
Even the 50's generation of ham gear was largely mass-produced, 30's era technology. Most 60's generation "communications" receivers were the same rf-mixer/oscillator-2 stages of 455 kc/s i.f.- diode detector/BFO-af amplifier lineup as the original HRO, Super-Pro and other well known classics, but the craftmanship of the later stuff was pure junk by comparison. The most notable exception is the Collins series of receivers with its superb craftmanship and the innovation of the crystal-controlled 1st oscillator and tuneable i.f. for superior stability, dial accuracy and selectivity.
That's why I can't get too excited about such now-"classic" pieces as Valiants, HQ-110's, Knight T-150's, "Hotwater" SSB rigs, S-38's, etc. Some of that stuff was mediocre or just plain junk back then, and still is. To me "classic" means something like the prewar HRO, BC-610 or early Collins and other manufactured transmitters, and if postwar, equipment of the calibre of the 75A series receivers or the R-390 series of military gear. Even amongst broadcast transmitters, my Gates BC1-T simply lacks the substance of earlier Gates rigs such as the BC1-H or even my homebrew HF-300 rig.
Of course, the quality of homebrew ham equipment ranged from very poor to professional, from the beginning of radio to the present day, and even some of the worst-built rigs can be extremely interesting and worth preserving because of their unique design or construction.
