I agree with your concern, but I'm quite happy to see what's going on in the retro emulation & decompilation/reverse-engineering scenes[1]. A lot of that is being done and is driven by "the kids". It's an appealing, easy, and low-risk entry point for newer developers who want to dive into low level stuff, and it even has a bit of a "fuck the man" bent to it, which is fantastic. You're right that the environment is different from what we grew up with, it was always going to be. But I think the kids will find their own way.
[1] If you haven't been tuned in, check this out, it's the goddamn Super Mario 64 source code in C, reverse-engineered from the game ROM: https://github.com/n64decomp/sm64/blob/master/src/game/hud.c Similar projects exist for a ton of other classic games. It's jaw dropping what they're doing out there.
Yeah, I've heard of that decompilation, and have been more closely following the complete decompilation and PC port of Perfect Dark, which is pretty amazing.
[1] If you haven't been tuned in, check this out, it's the goddamn Super Mario 64 source code in C, reverse-engineered from the game ROM: https://github.com/n64decomp/sm64/blob/master/src/game/hud.c Similar projects exist for a ton of other classic games. It's jaw dropping what they're doing out there.