Man you ARE a fossil ;-). But the cool thing is, radio is still magic and the oldest modes still work just as well as ever for those who prefer to use them.
My favorite rig is still my Collins Twins. (75S-3/32S-3) In the early 1980’s, I built a general coverage frequency synthesizer for it, giving general coverage.
My first HF rig was a Galaxy GT550A transceiver, bought it new when Galaxy was being closed down in 1976. It was a hybrid rig (mixed tube and transistor). It had a great receiver and the only real drawback was the final tubes, it used a pair of 6LB6 TV sweep tubes. The problem was it required matched pairs. I had access to cheap tubes at the time, I worked for a wholesale distributor that had a division who sold Zenith. At first I just matched them. As tubes got harder to find I modified the final wiring to allow balancing the tubes. It was a little tricky to do but worked well.
Those were good days. Still have that rig too.