I think also some things simply work better for different people. When my vintage bike was new I was only four years old. I never rode bikes like that until about 7-8 years ago. I grew up with cheap Huffy attempts at BMX bikes, not 1970s and 80s road bikes. But my early 80s touring bike just works really well for the way I ride. While I've never actually owned a modern carbon or aluminum (or even steel) road bike, I've ridden them and I've owned an early 90s road bike with modern 10 speed components, and I simply didn't enjoy them as much as my old bike. They were certainly faster and the modern dual pivot brakes were spectacular, but eventually the bike always sat at home collecting dust because it wasn't very fun to ride. I don't know why I get more enjoyment out of using friction downtube shifters than I do with brifters or even indexed downtube shifters, but I do. I don't know what it is about an older bike that looks so good to me while many modern bikes don't really catch my attention, but that's just the way it is. *shrug*