Photography

While I agree with you that my claim was exaggerated, my claim remains true. While the differences you have outlined are correct, the differences for the photographer are basically negligible because it means essentially three things:

1. Better zooms
2. Better extreme wide angle optics (< 35 mm)
3. Yes, better coatings (which have a small impact on image quality, compared to optical design)

Well, before computers, all lenses were calculated using geometric optics, and these lessons are still true. The computer just makes it faster.

And on the topic of coatings, yes, we have gained fluoride element lenses, but what about thorium oxide doted lenses? Yes, you can't use them on digital cameras because the radiation dosage will kill the sensor eventually, but if you have ever seen the image output of a thorium oxide lens, you know what I'm talking about.

Also additionally on the topic of them being bad, alright I'm getting the rare stuff out.

• Auto Rikenon 55/1.4
• Zeiss Distagon 35/2
• Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58/2

And there are many more where that came from. Old stuff is useful. I'd genuinely like to see a modern post-2000 lens that has optical performance anywhere close to the outlined 3 lenses. Resolution isn't everything, there are more qualities to a photographic lens. We are artists, not computers, needing the highest resolution lens for machine vision tasks. And I do enjoy more organic lenses, like three-element lenses. Yes, the resolution is rubbish, but everything else is great. The colour reproduction is insanely good, as is the micro-contrast, together with its brilliant, out-of-focus rendering. These are just qualities that you cannot get with an 11 element prime lens where every small bit of spherical aberration or transverse chromatic aberration has been tuned out because in the end you add more elements and kill some of the signal. That's the natural trade-off and computers cannot fix the fundamental issue of absorption. You cannot buy physics, more elements mean more absorption. This will always remain the same, no matter if it's 100 years ago, or in 1000 years, the laws of physics stay the same.

Tldr: If you only take away one thing, then just give old lenses a try. There's no harm in trying the cheaper ones.

Edit: And also, yes, lightweight plastics means the lens will be lighter, but you pay the price in durability. And I will always prefer durability. Also, apochromatic lenses aren't only possible because of computers. There are apochromatic lenses long before computers were a thing. Mostly today's preferences have changed. Today means resolution at the cost of everything because that's what sells products. But lenses are more than just resolution. They have many more qualities that are important as well for aesthetic photography. Again, we're taking images for aesthetic effect, not for computers that need something for machine vision tasks.