I feel that your approach to WDW isn't unusual for someone that started the Disney journey as a young child. The reason is that you hadn't weighed your mind down with peripheral observations. I find the most people tend to confuse detail with reality. They seem to lose track of the idea that WDW is a fantasy park. They look for and identify everything like it is factual accurate and not remember that everything is designed to be symbolic, entertaining or utility based.
I never said that I don't miss a lot of what once was but what is happening now that people should be upset about is not brand or attraction location change because Walt Disney himself was never going to let things stay stagnant. He might have been more creative than those that followed him, but if you got stuck on the change aspect, you would probably been more upset with him then those that came after. My anger is how they have become exclusive and HUGE profit is the only real goal. Technologically areas like Star Wars Land is so much more detailed and technologically challenging that it makes those early years look like a playground at a daycare center. The problem is what good is all that, what good is the font on a sign if you can't afford to go to the place to see it. It has become a place where the general public can no longer go and have fun with their children without running up more debt. And why? So that their profits can be in the billions and their executives can own islands in the Caribbean and yachts the size of the Queen Mary.
As a child everything is magnified. As a child our level of impression is expanded and even if nothing had changed the shine inevitably comes off over the years and instead of seeing an object for what it is we only saw the general picture. Details don't come into focus until we get older and have seen the big picture and are now able to notice things that we don't agree with. Oh, they were there when we first saw them, but we saw them with our 8 year old priorities. I never had the good fortune of going as a child. I was 35 when I first set foot in WDW. I was impressed with the technology, the colors, the music and the attractions, but I also noticed a lot of flaws in those early years that a child would not have allowed to enter their minds. When I read about things that were so perfect in the minds of those early age visits, I can't help but wonder just what they are talking about. I heard that maintenance issues never existed 50 years ago, but they were there, they just didn't see them. They talk about how bright everything was compared to today and I have to ask, are you sure that it was WDW you went too because the colors are so much brighter now then they were back then. In other words we are victims of our own imaginations and unintentional tunnel visioned memories.
It is now more the cost of that entertainment, the complexity of the process to just enter the parks and even the advance technology is standing in the way of any real enjoyment. We use to always have change in our pockets when we traveled because if we needed to make a call it was via a pay phone. There were banks of those all over MK. I'd bet you never noticed those when you first went there. The thought that we would be emotionally and physically tethered to a small flat object that ruled our lives wasn't even imaginable back then. Now it is basically the only way to experience the place to the fullest is to have your face constantly struck on that screen, refreshing and working to do anything so all the roses along the way are no longer even seen much less smelled.
It is really only a few that focus in on sign fonts, to most it means nothing, if it is neat clean and readable the signs will have fulfilled its mission. If an attraction is good, it is good no matter where it is located. Once inside the attraction is where the immersion actually is. Walking through the parent park to get to an attraction is part of the picture, but not the immersion. The "willful suspension of disbelief" is where the guest part comes in. If we are unable to do that, than we will have missed the whole point. Disney cannot control how everyone engages their imagination, they can only try to create that little spark of inspiration that fires up the imagination to run with it.
I've come to the conclusion that I am the most un-Disney Disney fan. I couldn't tell you the font of any Disney sign two minutes after I looked at it. I was blown away by the vitriol surrounding the new crepetaria and I actually like seeing Ip
