Even though Burke was talking about the state, I think his words apply to the religious and cultural realms as well. (I may be criticized for quoting Burke because he isn't Catholic, but oh well. Wisdom knows no boundaries.)
I can understand completely where you are coming from, ultima. I grew up in the Novus Ordo era, without ANY knowledge of the Tridentine Mass. However, my parish was rather traditional, so when I was in the parish grade school, all students were required to go to Mass EVERY day during Lent, and we had regular Stations of the Cross and Benediction and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on Fridays during Lent. We also celebrated traditions such as Forty Hours and the symbolic coronation of Mary during the month of May. Unfortunately, there isn't as much of an empathesis on this for the current students at my parish (due to a change in the principal and pastor), but all of this had a significant impact on the development of my faith.
As I went on to high school, I received a religious education in an all-male environment with the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales as my primary religious teachers. This reenforced my traditionalist sentiments. More recently, my striving towards a more traditionalist celebration of my faith has been fomented by the fact that the Catholic chapel on my campus is rather "liberal" or "modernist" in character (guitar music during Mass, "inclusionary" language sometimes during the Readings). Out of my own free will, I have looked for alternatives. At the moment, I don't have much free reign to look for them, due to my location and situation in life (full-time college student). But very recently, I've been driven by my new-found devotion to the Divine Mercy, the writings of Thomas Aquinas and G.K. Chesterton, and learning more about the Eastern Rites of Catholicism.
Finally getting to my point, I think that what we have been growing through over the past forty years or so is another period of change within the Church. There are many ways to interpret change, and that (added to human weakness and hardheadedness) has caused many of the problems we are dealing with now. While the beliefs we hold are eternal (they are given to us by God through revelation and God acting through the Church), traditions have been slowly changing over the millenia. The way we celebrate Mass now, or even fifty years ago, is NOT the way Mass was celebrated originally. As the Church has adapted to various situation, times, and places, the traditions have changed. Because of this, debates and conflicts have resulted, as they are now. But the miraculous aspect through all these trials and tribulations is that the Church has SURVIVED all these calamities. This alone can show us that God "has our back." As Burke stated above, if the Church is without any means of change, it is without means of its conservation. The Church was "forced" to change (or in reality adapt) to circumstances that cause much peril. One such time was the Protestant Reformation, when heroes such as St. Charles Borromeo and St. Francis de Sales sprung up to the challenge and preserved the Church. I think we are witnessing another such time right now. We just need to put our entire trust in God and stop relying on our incomplete human perspective. We will get through this time, as we have so many times in the past.
The other big problem in this widening debate, as in the arguments over what "conservatism" is, is that people are claiming that they have the "true" Catholicism. I think in most cases, all sides to this debate have vaild points. It is when we're reduced to name-calling and making claims of exclusivity that we reach crisis point. The frame of our argument is mostly within the "Roman" rite of Catholicism. At the same time, however, we have NUMEROUS other rites of Catholicism that have different traditions and ways of celebrating the Sacraments. They are as much ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, and APOSTOLIC as we are. I don't think many people would question that. Also, the Church has held that the Eastern Orthodox have valid lines of apostolic succession, many commonalities with the "Western" church, etc. Are they any less "Christian" than us? I'd say not.
Another thing we need to remember is that people have different ways of expressing their faith, even within the Catholic tradition. Some are more "traditional" than others. Some of us belong to the different rites of the Church. As long as they hold the basic tenets of our faith (there is ONE God, Jesus is His Son and our Redeemer, the Eucharist is actually the Body and Blood of Jesus, there are Seven Sacraments, etc.), they are CATHOLIC. The only people we can validly criticize on all grounds are the "Catholics in name only" and the separatists of the various Protestant faiths. They have been mindnumbed and blinded by half truths. We need to stop nitpicking about everything. The great enemies to our faith are assaulting us at every turn while we fight amongst ourselves. I think the demonstration that even with "decrees" such as Rosarium Virginis Mariae (which was more of a suggestion than anything else), that "old ways" still find a way to continue shows that even though we have a one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, God has given us free will (checked by dogma) to worship and praise Him in our favorite ways.