Yeh. But it's all relative, Rob. Inflation has distorted our view. "Back when" you could build something "that cheap" I could not afford it for many years.
"Now" I've really REALLY enjoyed learning what I've learnt about such things as EFI. "Back then" you had magazines, and it turns out, "they were wrong" sometimes. In fact, some of them outright LIED.
So there's good and bad, then and now. People lied then, just like now. There were people who lied about whatever they were trynna sell ya, and there were people who lied about "what it would run" "Just like now."