Quoted from vid1900:On pinside or at an expo, you can find lots of non-Diamondplated games, decades older than the WPC games, that look excellent - because they have been cherrypicked by collectors.
But the normal games I go out and service look like, well, normal routed games.
Well I suppose we'll have to check in on newer Sterns,etc on location in 20 or 30 years. I suspect they won't look *terribly* different from these. Hopefully a little better though.
I can tell you the MM that was at the bowling alley near me for 15 years (alley shut down now) never remotely looked like that MM pic (that we've all seen before). In fact I think that pic was originally touted as "most blown out MM ever".
In fact if that IS a "normal" MM routed game these days... then surely you have pics of the more neglected ones out there??
Now THERE'S a challenge for ya... and I'm sure you'll have some fine examples. Hey I sound like the OP now - demanding pics from others