It is about relevance and nostalgia. How many of us rode steel bikes when younger? I know my interest in 1980s bikes is due to my growing up in that era. Thanks to this site, I am getting the bug to buy a bike I could never afford in the 1980s, but always lusted after. My disposable income has caught up with my nostalgia and I can buy today what I could not in 1988. If no one is riding a steel production bike with down tube shifters today, there will not be the same pool of buyers 20 years down the road.