You make a very interesting point, and it's something I have noticed, too: the people who really go for the hand-holding and worst liturgical abuses of VatII are mostly elderly or pretty close to it. All of the ladies who want to get on the altar in my parish are so elderly they practically have to be helped up the stairs. But they are quite a solid bloc, and they bitterly oppose any changes.
And they are not notable for their piety. Our priest in High Springs recently started having someone lead the Rosary before the Sunday Masses because he was tired of the roar of conversation in the church before the Mass began (and sometimes during - I have seen people chatting on their cell phones during Mass). Guess what - the old ladies complained about "having" to say the Rosary, and he received all sorts of bitter, spiteful letters and complaints from them.
I think a lot of the more devout people got driven out of the Church in the 1970s by some of the excesses, and many of the people who remained were the ones who were fine with whatever went down, not very bright or religiously well-educated, for the most part, and finally ended up driving everyone else away. Those are the ones who, when Father is revealed to be gay because he has been caught soliciting in a public men's room, say, "oh, but he's such a nice young man, and we support him 100%, and the Vatican is just being mean about this whole thing."
Sadly, they have a lot of power in parishes, partly because of the proliferation of "lay ministries" and committees, and they will fight any reforms tooth and nail.
I can just about guarantee that your specimen was a 20 or 30 something "young radical" back then ... these are the authors of the revolution, now in their dotage. OF COURSE they're vehemently opposed to change. The change in question is invariably a reversal of the radicalism to which they dedicated their lives. You're aksing them to publicly admit that their lifes' work, far from being a good legacy, was an unmitigated disaster.
It may well be the truth, but it's a tough pill to swallow.
BTW, check the bumpers of their cars for "Kerry" stickers ...