That may be true overall, but it depends on the tool. I've bought a lot of my tools for a few bucks at farm and estate auctions. I have two large Craftsman adjustable wrenches. The older one, made in the US, is heavier and there's a lot less play in the mechanism, so it's the one I reach for first. That's been typical for me.

Generally, newer tools are lighter, which is nice when you're carrying them around, but sometimes it means they're more fragile. I have a 1955 McCulloch chainsaw, and it's a beast, must weigh 40 pounds and have about 200 parts in it. The carb is a complicated thing with a lot of moving parts, and there's a gearbox between the engine and the chain. But I bought it for $12, cleaned it up a little, got a stuck part in the carb unstuck, and it started. Not bad for a 70-year-old piece of equipment that looked like it'd been gathering dust for years.

My 2024 Stihl is a much better saw. It's far lighter, which is important when you're carrying it all day. It's much simpler, with fewer things that can go wrong with it. It runs higher RPMs, so it cuts wood faster. But there's enough plastic in it that there's no way it's going to be around in 70 years. I'll be happy if I get 10 out of it.

The ideal would be the design quality of the Stihl, with all the legitimate improvements they've made over the decades, with the materials quality and manufacturing care of the McCulloch. That combination is probably available in a high-end line, just not at consumer prices.

Tool quality has definitely improved over time, but... and this is a big but... many people buy lower quality tools now than were available previously because of their low cost. I would put any of my Japanese or German/Czech hand tools up against any of the big brands of the past (many of which I also own thanks to yard/garage sales) and say they're better, not just from an ergonomics and design perspective but from an actual strength/reliability perspective. Most people, at least in the US, though are only familiar with low-quality China/Taiwan made tools which have lower quality metals and a lot of plastic content when it comes to hand tools.

If you invest a bit of effort into finding good hand tools, the options are much better these days but you have to be willing to pay.

I have used some hand-me-down tools from my father and recently bought new tools. I don't have 20 years experience, so take my opinion for what it is worth, but I concur with the repair guy.

It used to be there was one hardware store in town and you bought what they carried, and they would carry tools of a sufficient quality to avoid returns and complaints.

Now you can buy tools from several thousand different manufacturers and people trend towards the less expensive options.

You can also, with just a little research, buy the best in the world from anywhere in the world. (edit: for now)

I built sets for a small regional theater company back in the 90s and we had, at the time, state-of-the-art cordless Makita power tools. Today's Makitas are so much better it is ludicrous. The old skinny-handled Makitas were barely powerful enough to do the job, the batteries didn't last long and had memory issues, the chucks were clunky, brushes would wear out extremely quickly, and the plastic was so brittle if you dropped them the housing would often crack or split.

I remember having to pre-drill thousands of pilot holes for screws and bolts, not because I was worried about the wood splitting but because the drills weren't powerful enough for longer and/or thicker screws.

Modern Makitas are more robust, more powerful, smaller and lighter, and more reliable.

They can drive 3/4" hex head lag bolts into soaking wet wood all day, something that was impossible for (or destructive to) 80s and 90s tools.

In the 80s and 90s I had the same Craftsman screwdriver set that everyone else in America had-- the ones with the clear handles that turned into a cylinder of greased ice the second a single drop of oil got on them.

Now I have a nice set of Weras and even when wearing oil-soaked gloves they are easy to grip.

Pick up anything with a power cord or a battery from 2000 or 1980 and it becomes pretty obvious.

What was so interesting about that? Seems so obvious as to be mundane to me, so I'm curious as to what I could be missing.

The tools they sell in Japan are different than the ones sold in North America.