Couldn't agree more. I personally haven't written queries using the old syntax for something like 10 years. I had just assumed during all that time, that those people, either obstinant or ignorant, writing in the old syntax were getting good data from their queries. This doesn't even address the fact that with the current syntax we can do things that could never have been done in the old:

SELECT ....

FROM Version V

INNER JOIN x

ON x.Id = V.Id

INNER JOIN y

ON x.Id = y.Id

AND y.Version = (SELECT MAX(Version)

FROM Y AS y2

WHERE y2.VersionId <= v.VersionId

AND y2.Id = y.Id)

This little dive through the old methods was an eye opener that I thought I'd share just in case others were as uninformed. There really are still a lot of people who are using the old approach.