"how many pieces of software design have remained in heavy use worldwide for 30 years. The fact that no one bothered to replace it in all that time is proof enough that whatever warts it has can't be that painful. "
I'm not convinced modern software ecosystem optimizes for quality. Many CAD packages used today have roots as old or older. The dominant CAD format (at least in construction) is DWG which - I can tell you from experience - is about as nice to work with on programmatic level as trying to skin rotten cod. The data contained in this steaming heap of obfuscation is mostly trivial in complexity. Just because we have tools in use does not mean they could not be better - it's rather that once something is in use, social proof, sunk cost fallacy and some practical reasons kick in and development stagnates to dealing with the kinks in the established system.
I was just ranting to some people yesterday about how with HDMI there are still remnants of the original NTSC broadcast standard from nearly 80 years ago. Even though we've (finally!) reached the point where my digital computer is sending a digital image to my digital monitor with no unnecessary analog conversions in between.
One of my "favorite" parts of HDMI is that you can specify the resolution in two different ways depending on if you are connected to a computer monitor or a TV. Choosing the right one is sometimes important, a resolution might not work on your display if you specify it using the other format.
Just a guess, but does this have anything to do with most TVs getting the image margins cut when plugging a computer in the HDMI (and the magic "just scan" setting that fixes it?)
Look up CEA vs. DMT video modes. Typically this can become a problem when you need to specify the video mode before connecting the display, or if you're running through a KVM.
I'm not convinced modern software ecosystem optimizes for quality. Many CAD packages used today have roots as old or older. The dominant CAD format (at least in construction) is DWG which - I can tell you from experience - is about as nice to work with on programmatic level as trying to skin rotten cod. The data contained in this steaming heap of obfuscation is mostly trivial in complexity. Just because we have tools in use does not mean they could not be better - it's rather that once something is in use, social proof, sunk cost fallacy and some practical reasons kick in and development stagnates to dealing with the kinks in the established system.