And, I maintain that I'm sure I can maintain situational awareness without GPS.
No one has said you can't, as long as you fly in areas that are relatively easy to navigate in ...and of course in good visibility.
Yeah, but....
There are A LOT of places on earth, some within an hour's flying of where I live in Ontario, that you'd have to be very sharp with the chart to always know where you are. It becomes just about completely constant map reading, to the point that it nearly interferes with good airmanship, to always know your location without navaids. Fortunately, there's less traffic to watch for, and hardly any controlled airspace to manage. Prior to GPS I flew these areas in not so great VFR, and realized that if I lost my location, I would never get it back. All those lakes look the same!
I once tracked outbound for 93 miles south from NairobiKenya. After that, I lost the VOR signal, and with no topographical reference at all, I flew for 4 hours (Twin Otter). All I did was hold the last heading, there were no other navaids at all at our altitude, and nothing else to refer to on the ground, it all looked the same! I eventually came to Lake Malawi, and was 25 miles off coarse, but in 500 miles, that's not too bad! Had GPS existed, I would have been much closer.
But, skilled map reading ability aside, there's no good excuse for not availing one's self with reasonable navigational capability. I can hardly think that anyone who can afford and has the skill to fly, cannot make a GPS a part of their good pilotage. Sure, I fly around locally without using one (but I still have it), within 25 miles of here, I really do know where I am!
To me. it's sort of like getting into a Cessna 182RG, and saying well, I'll not bother retracting the wheels, 'cause I never did on the regular 182 I used to fly! Advances are made, we should make good use of them!
Pilot DAR