Hiro11, I complement you - you present a fascinating argument with this thread.
As someone who loves and rides vintage MTBs, allow me to reframe this argument just a bit.
In 1990, a good mountain bike was a versatile ride-anywhere, do-anything bike that appealed to a wide variety of cyclists, casual and enthusiastic. You could ride to the grocery store on it. You could tour the country on it. You could ride fire roads on it. You could ride singletrack on it. It was comfortable. It had mass appeal. It got a lot of people into cycling. A good one retailed for about $500-600, the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $900-$1,000 today.
In 2020, a good mountain bike is a do-one-thing, 1x10, don't-waste-your-time-with-this-thing-on-pavement full-suspension beast marketed largely to an audience of "extreme dudes", retailing for $2,500-$5,000.
Hybrids are the new mountain bikes - that is to say, the good ones resemble the multi-functional MTBs of old.
Or maybe gravel bikes are the new mountain bikes.
