Easy instruments with no confusing colours, fixed card ADF, drum DG's, pull-to-cage, carb heat and cowl flaps, radial engined reliability
Not to mention in those days we did not have to comply with reams of rules and regulations so complex even the lawyers who have written them can not agree on what they really mean.
Oh for those simple days when all we had to do was fly off into non controlled airspace in IMC weather and find a low power NDB hundreds of miles away and then land on a ice strip at night with blow pots for runway lighting in driving snow with a wicked cross wind.
For sure today's pilots have it far more demanding.