There has been a big decline in PPL issues in the last decade - about a 1/3 drop.
That big? I didn't know that stat. I wonder if it's closely correlated to 9/11 and the subsequent Big Fear of everything with wings.
A lot of people today won't climb into a knackered old 1970s Cessna/Piper.
You're right there, and in the same timeframe we've managed to build eyeball-popping amounts of technology into even relatively inexpensive cars. I heard somewhere that Cirrus tried to make the interior of their aircraft feel like a BMW. I think they succeeded but at an eye-watering price.
At least GA has utility value - once you drag yourself above a certain level of capability.
That's what I told myself when I was learning to fly but I've actually never done anything truly useful with a plane, and I wonder if we're losing at least some people when they come to realize that utility comes with such a high cost. It's a damn sight cheaper to bash around in a Citabria for an hour than it is to fly several hundred miles in a Cirrus. Nothing against Cirrus here, BTW. They're nice planes but far, far outside my current budget as is any other nice, modern, fast IFR platform.
I'm somewhat biased in this respect - the Pitts has about as much utility as a Formula 3 car, and for much the same reasons - but when I realized that I wasn't going to be cruising across the country at 180 knots it was aerobatics that gave me a direction in flying.