Sorry, Dave Mayer but .... No.
Wheels are plenty strong. In fact wheels are lighter and stronger than ever. The stuff about "excessive dish" and all that .... yeah, maybe in theory, but I ride concrete, not conceptual, wheels, and they hold up just fine.
In fact, even though I am an ultra-clyde, I ride low-spoke-count wheels ... . without problem. So all this "wheels are weaker" crap is .... crap.
As for "perfectly fine older frames and components must be abandoned due to being 'obsolete' .... " yeah, that is absolutely the first thing people making NEW products should consider.
fact is .... sorry to bring the facts and all .... WHEELS HAVE BEEN 135 MM SINCE THE MID '90s.
So, yeah ... if by "perfectly fine older frames" you are talking about serious vintage gear from THIRTY years ago ... seriously, what kind of Luddite expects Zero advances in Thirty Years?
And even for all your empty raging ... I run a 126-mm, 27-inch wheel on my 1983 Cannondale. So maybe all this hand-wringing about how you cannot find parts for your 1949 Simplex .... is too specific to hold up a whole industry.
Even more to the point, I can still find old parts for bikes .... or I can upgrade using new parts which do the job even better.
You are basically complaining because nobody makes new OEM parts for your 1909 Model T .... maybe you don't understand the realities of doing business ... but if you really think there is a big market for '70s-era bike parts, go into business and get rich. Good luck.
Also .... there is quite a large older population on this site. A lot of us have experience with the stuff you are talking about .... we grew up on single-speeds with Ashtabula cranks, three-speed Sturmey Archer stuff, 120- and 126-mm Schwinns .... the original "10-speeds" which seemed so incredibly advanced in the late '60s and early '70s.
Now, fifty years later, we are all doing fine on modern bikes. Going back to the old stuff isn't revelatory .... it is nostalgic, as in, we forget the downsides and only think of the good parts of our lives when we owned those bikes.
Manufacturers aren't adding more gears to make more money. They added more gears because the added ratios improved riding for most riders. True, they added one cog per season or two to get people to keep buying the "latest greatest," but caveat emptor. If you fall for the hype, don't blame the people who fooled the fool, right? Raise your game.
Fact is, having more useful ratios more readily available is a bonus for people who ride smart enough to use the tools at their disposal.
And NEWSFLASH!!! If you want to you can buy almost any frame and build it as a single speed. You can have whatever dimensions you want. You don't need to run a double or a triple, or any rear cogs. You have that freedom.
You want everyone to want what you want, and what you really want to be a kid again.
Good luck with all that.