Thanks OverRun that is very reassuring. In my (main) field of telecommunications, the loss of operational expertise has also happened. Older folks got retired early, or chose to leave rather than put up with the new style 'managers' telling them how to b@lls it up.
As a result, when something goes wrong the company may not have someone who can say, "Hang, I remember when something like this happened NN years ago. On that occasions we found that X was the problem." The turnover of generations accelerated in the late 80s and throughout the 90s, to be faster than before.