Definitely. I'll point out though that my goal is not experience with this "modern" tool set. I'm plenty comfortable with the tool set we have, and the technology we use. It's the way in which we use it that's frustrating. My goal was to learn and continue growing as a developer, while building something I care about. I don't feel I'm getting the first part of that.

I feel as though I've been trying, in my short time here, exactly what you're suggesting here. It turns out that it has been a fairly major source of friction, because small incremental changes are really hard to float unless there is consensus on where the future of the codebase is going, which we certainly don't have. So a lot of the changes I try to "make anyway" seem to meet push-back from my team, despite my many efforts to argue for long-term goals, or even the value of the single incremental piece. The friction I mentioned surrounds this push-back, but the feeling I'm getting is that this push-back is based in an unwillingness to try new ideas. As I mentioned, maybe this is due to my lack of experience convincing people of new ideas, which makes me think I need even more to be in a learning environment.