A lot of it, unfortunately not all of it, comes from Oracle people. But even Oracle is starting down the path of eliminating the old style syntax. If you go out & search on the Oracle blogs & newsgroups, it's a big deal that lots of them are very unhappy about.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning