Favorite Vintage Frame for Modern Road Build
What are your favorite vintage frames to use in modern road build projects? Not looking for obscure, hard-to-find, or highly-valuable frames. Asking about your go-to favorites which are semi-widely available via craigslist, etc. and can be picked up for a few hundred bucks or less.
1 - Specifically, what particular makes/models from the 80s, updated with modern versions of entry-level or mid-level components, might perform comparably to a modern frame with similar components.
2 - Looking through these threads I've been really impressed with the build quality of a lot of these bikes from the 80s and how inexpensive they were then, relative to current prices. Was there a golden era where even entry-level or mid-level bikes were built so well they continue to hold up today, 30 years later? Did moving from steel to alloys or aluminum represent improvements in frame construction technology? Or, had bike manufacturers perfected working with steel frames, while the alloy or aluminum frames were available but maybe didn't have all the kinks worked out yet?
I'm a total newbie and currently at that lowest stage of knowledge where I don't even know what I don't know, so I apologize if my questions are confusing or don't make sense.