In truth quasi I find the newer stuff is actually simpler to work on in a lot of ways compared to the old stuff and most everything is just plug n play. One of the biggest advantages overall from my view is that most of what was considered routine maintenance (and of necessity an ongoing process) is now unnecessary with a greatly extended service interval today than what the older stuff had.

While it's true that one often will need to put a car on a diagnostic 'puter to chase down a problem, from there it's usually a simpler process and troubleshooting is greatly simplified in this way .... some times

I think a vast majority of people are overly mystified by the new technologies unnecessarily. One of the best pieces of advice my old man ever gave me about mechanics was "Boy, everything mechanical goes round and round. While some things go around one way and others do it another way, it all still just goes round and round."

In actuality there is a short list of mechanical principles and once one understands them it removes a lot of the mysteries, no matter whether you're workin on a washing machine or the space shuttle