40 years ago when I was a kid and backpacked 450 miles one summer in California, my frame pack baseweight was 18 pounds. (45 complete with 2 weeks food)A lot of people assume that years ago packs weighed about half a ton but that modern methods have fixed that. In fact there really is very little difference in backpacking gear over that time. The nylon is thinner and we have sil nylon, but tents haven't really changed despite all of the hype - each is just another rendition of an ancient design. People have been living in tents for milleniums and there just haven't been any really new ideas since premade stakes. EXCEPT that the UL modern packs aren't capable of handling large or heavy weight.

There has been really good, mediocre and crummy gear manufactured years ago and currently. I have top of the line gear thats 20 years old that can't be replaced today with anything as good. My 25 year old WM super kodiak goretex bag may weigh 56 ounces, but it is completely seam sealed, doesn't need a bivy bag and is immune to spindrift. Its warm at -5 its rating.

I was looking at new backpacks yesterday. The big ones are as heavy as they were 40 years ago and half of the little ones are so full of bladders and extras that they weigh as much as my 6,500 inch spectra backpack. My tent cannot be replaced and neither can my 40 ounce marmot goretex tech 40 jacket with hood - they offered to replace it, but the only single garament they make with all of the features is the 8,000 meter parka.

My old down coats are warmer than the new UL down coats and are already paid for. My montebell alpine light jacket craps out at 20 degrees even wearing fleece under it. People would be warmer in a couple pairs of cotton sweat pants with a shell over, than in modern ultralight barely insulated snow pants.

Cookgear. Heck I used an aluminum boyscout cookkit. Its not THAT much lighter than my titanium and I carried a pack of matches for cooking. A spoon rounded out the setup.

Theres this lighter and tinier modern camping concept. Tiny is cold. (period =.) You need noncompresable insulation to stay warm. Modern long underwear weighs exactly the same as old long underwear. If your pack is light because you don't have enough clothes - you lose. If its too tiny it takes the extra weight of stuff sack to make the gear fit, which damages the gear, and still weighs the same amount.

It would seem that advertising hype combined with people wanting to collect a bunch of shiny gear is the main difference between the new modern ultra neato gear and the old gear that just basically did its job without any hype.
Jim