I just know growing up that I played the local munis and the ground was hard. The greens were hard. You had to hit approaches with a lot of spin to prevent your ball from bounding off the back of the green. And most of the greens were tilted towards the approach, theoretically making it easier to stop your approach, and exacting a very real penalty if you went over and had to chip back down the slope. The clubs and balls back then made it more difficult to create that kind of spin, and so everyone I knew grew up playing the ground game by necessity, as we just couldn't dependably hit approaches that would stop on those greens.
Now I see the double-whammy - those same courses are now maintained in a softer state, especially the greens. That combined with the qualities of the newer equipment make stopping approaches on the greens MUCH easier. You see ball marks on the greens now, not so much back then.
I guess ultimately the question is, was more lost than gained? Most golfers would probably say that maintenance practices are better now, the courses are better now. Now that I CAN hit aerial approaches to those greens, I certainly do much more often then I used to.
Net gain? Net loss?