Too many crazy eugenics books for you. The SAT scores dropped dropped because they dropped the section everyone aces, the analogies. It was replaced with writing, which is harder and actually requires effort.
No, the analogies and antonym portions were replaced by "vocabulary in context" - this was in the early to mid 1990's, long before the writing portion came along. While you may have "aced" the analogies, they were deleted because they were considered hard and because it was a part of the test that tended to measure IQ rather than how good a school you attended.
NO.
Those of us who deal with them KNOW that high school and college grads know less and less every year. The poor writing skills of modern university students are epidemic.
Even doctoral candidates submit work that would have been scorched for poor writing 25 years ago. It's not an illusion. Students don't know as much as they used to know, and it's a problem throughout the USA.
Portions on writing were added because JOHNNY CAN'T WRITE. Johnny can TEXT, and Johnny can create his MY SPACE, and Johnny can work his video games. Johnny cannot write a sentence.