the emissions/cafe bullpoopie completely wasted the whole generation of late 70s-late 80s models, making them junkier than the uaw coulda dreamed of...
eventually we got to 'decent' port fuel injection, at the cost of user-friendliness in the home garage...and it still aint 'clean' enough...
Actually... decent, reliable port fuel injection was being installed on cars as early as 1975 - as were reliable overdrive transmissions. They just weren’t being installed on American cars, the Big Three having decided that their answer would be detuned engines running tiny carbs, lousy cams, no overdrive transmissions, and super tall rear gears. It would take the US makers a decade to FINALLY give in and adopt those two innovations, and another decade to finally implement them properly.
As for user-friendliness in the home garage: Sorry, when it takes the average guy longer to figure out what setting his 70 Firebird’s carb should have after reassembling the engine and putting the carb on than it does for me to take a multimeter to any Bosch L-Jet system to see if the sensors aren’t working, then that argument is so much Bravo Sierra. Carbs are *harder* to diagnose and work on than EFI, especially after the advent of OBD-II and other “where does it hurt” systems.