Maybe there is a little bit of truth to that, but there is another side to it as well...

On the younger folks thing,.. I see plenty of younger folks who pack super heavy and plenty of old guys who pack really light. I pack about as light as anyone I know. I am pushing 70 and don't plan to start carrying much more any time soon.

I have not really found that carrying more stuff really equated with more much comfort in camp and it certainly doesn't equate with more comfort on the bike. I find that with very careful gear choices and planning I am very comfortable with the items in an ultralight load. I don't know if that is because I am "more tolerant of minimal stuff and just living with x amount of discomfort", but it really doesn't feel like it to me. I enjoy my gear choices.

Even when I first started out and packed lots of heavy stuff I quickly realized that part of what I liked about touring was the simplicity of living with limited possessions, simple choices, and a generally simple lifestyle. I realized that a lighter load would be nice too, but a big part of the gear paring was also a matter of just simplifying things for the sake of simplicity itself. When we hit the Ozarks and Appalachians on the first tour (TA) trimming weight seemed like an obvious and big priority if it wasn't already. The Rockies hadn't impressed that on me as much since on the TA the route there was generally well graded with long, but never super steep climbs.

After that optimizing the gear choices became an obsession, not only to trim weight and bulk, but to optimize the effectiveness of the gear. During the same period I was doing some backpacking and much of the optimizing was shared between the two pursuits. In that process i managed to work out choices that worked for me offering a light weight setup that I could live comfortably with.