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But the software back then couldn't do 1% of what software does today. It's a tradeoff.

You can run that old software in an emulato if that's all you want. And abandonware is free.

Perhaps, though I doubt it. Modern software may have more features and functions, accumulated over time, but what it so often lacks is a good way to encourage discoverability (and can make it much worse — e.g., the Office Ribbon) while making things work better through internal consistency (though that internal consistency was often at the expense of being applicable application-to-application). It's funny how much paid software is so much worse than FOSS options when it comes to actually using it — the FOSS stuff may not look as nice, but it does the job, gives more and better options, and has something resembling documentation. Old software is much closer to FOSS tools than modern paid software in spirit, and much has been lost in the quest for paid-but-cheap.

People want cheap software, and that’s what they get.

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