Confess about your geared ride

I think to some extent it depends on the kind of riding you do. Modern road bikes generally get their stiffness and lightness by being made of aluminium. In fact, alu bikes have to be built very stiff, because if they're built with much flex in them, they fall apart due to metal fatigue. So the ride is hard and unyielding. Steep fame angles add to the stiffness but give tense, twitchy handling. Very good if you're totally going for it on reasonably smooth roads, but a bit punishing if you like big rides on small, potholed lanes.
For the kind of riding I prefer - long day rides through very rural areas, or trips around town with shopping or whilst drunk - a super-stiff, featherlight aluminium road bike with amazingly responsive handling would be no good. On the long rides it would batter my coccyx into jelly and dump me in the ditch if I lost concentration while trying to open a fruit bar, and it wouldn't look after me on the way home from the pub.
So I like steel bikes with a more relaxed geometry. In that category, modern groupsets are definitely better, but the old ones still work well enough; modern frames are maybe a bit lighter than older ones, but not by much.
Given that you can buy or put together a very nice older bike with a great deal of period charm for the price of a new bottom-end Halfords' special, you can see why 'classic' steel bikes still have plenty of fans.

^ I find most of that post to be complete tosh

This ^^.