Made in a time when there was multiple companies putting out tons of machines a year and these machines could be found everywhere . At one point in pinball history the companies were producing over 100,000 games in one year . Theme is much more important when there is currently one company making games and they put out 2 tittles a year .

the same could be said about the auto industry looking back

"Yugo? Saturn? AMC? Ford making basically the same cars with some tail lights changed out and rebadge them as mercury? those cars really make me scratch my head"

"Pinball" would never make it today without old people to spend money on it. Just kind of stating the obvious.

Now, going with other comments here, yes, I think about this all the time: I see a car on the street and I think who the heck took pride in designing that? Think of the Taurus with the OVAL windows and matching OVAL stereo system. OMG.

Today, our "normal" stimulation level is so much higher than it was 40 years ago. The game play on most EM machines would be considered boring to non-pinheads.

Some themes, sure. But here's some food for thought. We had a tournament a few months back and had a handful of machines on free play, including a Gottlieb Team One. I think this particular machine would fall in the category of machines you could rip on for artwork.

In addition to one older gentleman that came back a handful of times JUST to play that particular machine, there were two little girls about 10 years old that played it for well over an hour straight! There were a number of solid state machines, and of course a few basketball / video type machines nearby that they could have been spending time at, but they chose this particular game. I could see them switching back and forth between playing and watching, giving each other tips and pointing to where to shoot next. I really got a kick out of the fact that they were enjoying it so much.

End of the tournament, I go to break down the machine and find $10 worth of quarters in it! Yes, they found it fun enough to dump an entire roll of quarters into (even though it was set on freeplay). Maybe the theme isn't the best, but if you've got great gameplay then theme is easy to overlook. Better than an awesome theme that's a bore to play.

There is no tension like having two drop targets left standing on a Gottlieb Hot Shot.

And here I thought they were Ellipses.