A question regarding film , developer and development

Now, I realize I may place my patriotism in question, and the right to EVER take photos again in jeaopardy, but I just gotta ask: Are we not doing newer photographers, and some older ones a disservice by the constant, neverending search for the Holy Grail of grainless negatives, and the PERFECT film, and other such Photographick Proctologye? I suppose all this is a LOT of fun, and I have pretty well tried everything (it got me, too!) except Tetenal Neofin Blue and Rodinal at higher dilutions. BUT! Are there any BAD films that are more than 5 years old? How about developers? XTOL? It REALLY looked good in the stuff Kodak sent me. Have the problems been solved? What are the old standards? Tri and Plus-x, Ilford films, of whatever designation, and if you really need to be anal about processing, the newer T Max films. For full film speed, great shadow detail, and sharp enlargements, the older developers, D-76 Ilford ID-11 and , for that matter, Ethol UFG, and Acufine have done very well for years. D-76 has been around since before my service days,(1958)and my boss in college had a thing for Acufine and Tri-x rated at about 1200(he said) for yearbook photos of student activities and concerts. Remember, Tri-X was THE high speed emulsion back then, and it was really daring to rate it at 800. I thought the soot and chalk results were marginal, at best. When I asked "Jerry, what can we do to get better shadow detail?" he didn't have an answer. Probably, that was the best we could do, back there in the stone ages. Now, we have films at any speed up to 3200, with fine grain that would make the photographers of yore dance and sing, and pharmacologies of developers- enough to confuse a rocket scientist, which most of us ain't. Right? A modest suggestion would be: Select one film and developer, learn to produce excellent negatives using that combination, and brilliant prints from those negs, and then switch to somthing else, if the need is overwhelming. Who knows, the need to change may never appear, and more time can be spent on improving the seeing and composition skills. Lord knows, most of us could use that! The old stuff is very good, or it would not still exist,is relatively easy to use, and matches or surpasses the performance of the newer whiz-bang creations. Now where did I put my high-button shoes?? Dear, Where is the bugggy whip?

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