Older Computer Boards

I think it is a well known fact that anything you buy today, is not quite what it was yesterday. Most especially in qualities sake. They have refined the manufacturing process to the mini-millionths of a mite. There are those who would argue that it wasn't for profits sake, all I can say to that is, hahahahaha! ; )
Soo, when memory was at $1000 per MB, and HDDs much more, and motherboards had real gold on them, add in cards(fingerboards) too, were they not manufactured equal to their respective CPUs(the ones which are now priced at $140lb, while todays are at $5lb, for obvious reasons of course) ?
My question is this, since it's visibly obvious that their gold is thicker and golder, why aren't older boards given this treatment?

Thanks PTS. Those points could well be valid, especially in the cases of older finger boards having small transformers and speakers, as on ISA modems. I still see older motherboards being much richer than new ones. And what about older RAM sticks? Those are mostly ceramic chips and fingers, no other components involved, and very little board content. The PMs are in the chips as well, and still older, better, and thicker. Any thoughts on that one?