I do think the emphasis on quality of instructors of old or new is wrong.
There were excellent old time instructors and bad ones there are excellent modern instructors and bad ones.
For me this argument is about the training where I think there was far more hand flying emphasis in the past and less today.
Pilots of the past had to be more creative as they did not have the mass of pilot aids available today and somehow flying skills appear to have been lost with too much reliance on aids (while they work)
I would like to see much more basic handling and flying skills rather than the way it is now which is very much avoidance and fly by numbers.
Its not the instructors but the framework they work in which has deteriorated
Pace