Great post, agree entirely.Shitstalgia is rife in the things I look at. I adore old pictures of the UK, but especially Brighton. Yet you have to endure shitstalgia in abundance.
It's like the days of Janet and John were really a thing. The wistful retro-bias in people is only a reflection of being unable to cope with age. Of course the 70s were better- because I was a kid who didn't have a shit job (actually I have a rather good one, but anyway) didn't have to think about bills, future health and all the people I was closest to would still be alive.
In one of our late Friday wind downs I was a chatting with my boss about all this. We concluded that, as always, things always lay in between where truth is concerned. The society we live in now is probably the most enlightened in history, most socially conscious, but also the most intense. I think we need take a little bit from every era to form our utopia.