The modern attitude is discard everything "old", not immediately understood, and abandon standardization and simplicity.

I agree. I'd go further and say that the modern attitude is to discard everything "old", regardless of whether it is understood or not.

Eh, I don’t think that’s true. I think you’ve just had bad experiences, and that that can definitely be true in pockets.

For example, I am exceptionally happy that we have standardized on OpenAPI documentation and/or the self-documenting nature of GraphQL (where used) rather than WSDLs and the other ancient nonsense.

I’m also glad we’ve mostly progressed from SAML to OAuth2/OIDC/JWT. Sure, SAML still exists but it’s definitely on its way out, once the enterprises of yesteryear eventually switch.

I don’t know if you’ve ever built a SAML application and/or IdP, but it’s awful.

Sometimes “old” is just worse.

You're cherry-picking technologies. I'm talking about people.

Yes, I have. Krb5, LDAP, OAuth2, CAS, and SAML 1 & 2. XML sucks but sometimes you have to pee with bits you have rather than remake the entire world all at once with a utopian panacea.

Oh, of course - if you have no other options you go with what you have.

But if you have other options, I think too many people are also stuck in “I know what I know and I know it will work” and will happily kludge along while something else is sitting right next to them, better for the job.

Neither extreme works.

I can only hope this is cyclical, like most other things. Eventually organizations will reach a breaking point and realize if they want reliability, stability, and longevity, they need to slow down and do things the right way. At least I hope that’s the case. It doesn’t seem like the current pace can or should be maintained. It produces so much throw away junk.