Though I entirely like to fly the legacy Piper Cherokees, I prefer to own a legacy Cessna rather than Cherokee.
Many primary structure parts for Cherokees are getting impossible to locate. I have dealt directly with Piper Tech Support in respect of a late '70's Piper, and was directly told that Piper would not support that aircraft [or others of that era], as Piper did not "want them flying any more". Piper seems to want attrition to ground them. This would be very worrying if I owned one. This is coupled with the fact that Piper is very poor to describe "negligible damage" (damage not requiring repair), so even the smallest dent in most Pipers (like hail damage) can require parts replacement - and the parts may not be available at all.
I was asked to assist with a one half square inch spot of corrosion on a 1969 Piper Arrow wing spar, right in the mainwheel bay. There was no repair or rework possible, and no spar available. The plane sold for scrap for $7000 (the engine value - no value assigned to the airframe). I was asked to assist with a hail damage repair (allowance of the damage) on a PA-28-161. Only very diligent research by the (then frantic) new owner got us through, in finding a little known Piper Service Letter for another model, and it still cost him about $10,000 to get it flying again with that letter. Without it would have written off the plane.
In both those cases, were it to have been a Cessna, all the information to return the plane to service was right in the maintenance manual, and no Cessna parts would have been required.
Know the whole picture before you take on the operational responsibility for legacy aircraft.