Good new music has to carve its own territory. So nobody is doing the things in your last paragraph worth listening to, because that would be just a rehash, and that’s not good. You basically made an unachievable desire. You want them to have that old sound but not imitate... That music has been allowed to develop and flourish. And change. Because that’s what happens.
Not imitations or covers, but what that music would be if it had been allowed to develop and flourish? That's what I would call good music.
The music we hear today is not a creative progression from the best of what went before, but rather formulaic autotune angst pop which seems to have its origins in the early 2000’s and seems stuck there.