Part of my brain knows that people who use physical tools for a living use old and slightly busted ones all the time, but another part fantasizes about pulling a Peter Gibbons and going to work with people who actually appreciate the value of the right tool.
Take a Stanley number 5 Jack Plane. An old one weighs less, is flatter, has nicer handles, the iron sits better and the adjustments are better... than a new Stanley. However they are both worse than a Veritas one made on modern equipment, but... at four times the price.
What happened here is that a Stanley in 1940 cost a serious amount of money. A Stanley in 2018 its quite cheap because Stanley decided to stay mass market by reducing quality. However the space they left has been back-filled by newer higher quality makers using modern materials and techniques.
I think a lot of folks nowadays have never used a really good high-quality tool and have no idea what they're missing.