I'm also one of the more experienced ones that people rely on for knowledge of how things work under the hood.  I think understanding the old stuff really helps to understand the new stuff.  Granted, some of the old stuff works quite a bit better than the shiny new toys, but there are some cool new things that perform well. If you limit your toolbox to only the newest tools, you're missing a whole set of tools that can help you solve problems.

I think the real point is that without knowledge of the old stuff, how can you even know if the new things work well?  What constitutes "good performance" when evaluating something like FORMAT or EOMONTH unless there's a point of comparison?