Yes, this is eternal.
Meanwhile, the people who actually buy and live in these houses continue to want the things they've always wanted -- an affordable dwelling with space for the children to play, along with room for a cookout and maybe a small garden, in a safe neighborhood, with decent schools.
Conformance with the latest theories of architectural aesthetics isn't even on their lists, much less at the top of it.
One is that everything old was once new, and new things often provoke a backlash. We ought to be humble in believing that our opinions represent some timeless, objective truth, looking backwards or forwards. The same bungalows that seem to us quaint and charming were tacky and soulless to many of the people watching them be built; it seems more than possible that the new apartment buildings we vilify today will be thought of sentimentally by future generations who know them only as an important part of their city since they were born.
My perception is that, although there's an architectural critique component when they portray suburb houses as "all the same", most of the disdain arises from a notion of individuals which "settled" for something less their dreams; from a notion of individuals which accepted that that's "all there is", a nice-y house and a family.
I know it's impractical to build neighborhoods and homes like that in a place like the peninsula, but I would be lying if I said I didn't miss it... a lot. If you can't afford to live near work out here, and if you don't rent in an actual urban center, by the time you get home in the evenings the traffic has drained you so much it's hard to be motivated to do anything besides eat & sleep, rinse * repeat.
To your point, if you transplanted some of the nicer neighborhoods in Palo Alto or Menlo Park, for example, almost anywhere else in the country, and they'd just be slightly run down, mostly mediocre neighborhoods most middle/upper class folks would pass up in favor of new construction. And those are $3-5m houses here!
<rant off. Can you tell I'm frustrated by the auction-like homebuying process and stratospheric prices?>
For years, certain parts of the Bay Area were kept secret. They have pretty much all been exposed--thanks mainly to the Internet, and I guess Apple/tech? I still regret not buying the small house out in west Marin I could have bought for under $100K. I should have just bought it.