@CSteve - I don't think you're entirely wrong, but I do think there's a wide range in the quality of new construction. My parents' last home was built in 1984 in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. Houston is a city synonymous with sprawl and new homes being constantly thrown up. It's amazing how fast they can build those houses, whatever the quality may be. I would say that overall the bones of my parents' house were good - slab, studs, roof, etc. The windows and doors were okay, not horrible, but not top shelf either. Money was definitely saved on carpeting, kitchen flooring and some of the appliances - including the two central air units. All in all it was built to last though, and will probably be around for quite sometime (mother nature be willing). There are houses in other nearby developments that aren't yet 40, but already showing pretty good signs of aging. These would have probably been considered starter homes. And sometimes square footage and number of bedrooms and bathrooms just wins out over quality.
Several years back (some 35 years after theirs was built), a new home went up next door to ours here in Portland, Oregon. I watched it being built and can say with a pretty good degree of certainty that it was very well constructed. I do know that they used composite flooring, because it was recently sold and the new owners had real wood put in it. People do actually debate the merits of composite vs wood flooring so setting that aside, a great deal of care went into its construction. They did things that were definitely above and beyond what was required by code or what "they could get away with." Our house was built in 1908, and most of the rest of them on the block were built in the teens. The house next door was built in a desirable, established neighborhood, where the property values are now quite high. I think this kind of infill construction tends to be of quite good quality. But this might very well be an edge case.
Two examples isn't much of a sample I realize. I've been in new construction where I immediately thought "well, this house will last about as long as the mortgage payments do," and in others where I've thought, "I could live in a house like this."
I understand what you mean about hollow metal columns, but I try to remain open to new construction materials and techniques. Sometimes things are done a certain way just for cost savings, while other times they're done because it's actually a better way to do it, or more environmentally friendly. In the best of all possible worlds you get some combination of all three.
I love our little house. It's a bungalow of sorts. I've been told by knowledgable people that it was probably built by Italian immigrants because it's got several arched door/entryways. I suppose that arches were common features in the houses they grew up with back in the old country, so there you have them. It was very well constructed by skilled craftsmen, but I defy you to find a level floor or more than two 90 degree corners in the house. Of course for the most part everything is close to square, and the house has had 100+ years of expanding and contracting with the weather, as has the soil around it. But even brand new I know that everything wasn't square. Our kitchen cabinets were obviously made on-site, probably using hand tools (not sure when electric saws become common place and portable). At first glance the cabinets on either side of the sink looked identical, but look closer and you might notice that the doors didn't quite fill the cabinet openings just right. Look a little longer and you'd realize that at some point the cabinet doors were removed and mixed up. When they were reinstalled some were put on the cabinets they come from, while others were put on a different ones. So all the cabinets had slightly different sized doors. Had they been reinstalled properly, I don't think anyone would have ever been the wiser.
This kind of thing would never happen with today's factory made cabinets. They're just much more precise. Similarly you'll get much squarer structures using all of the joist hangers and other specialized fasteners that they've come up with along with prefabbed roof trusses. These advances have lowered the skill level required to build a house, but at the same time they've probably made them much more regular and far more resistant to things like hurricane force winds. The same level of craftsmanship? Oh heck no. But advancements in construction techniques and materials have caused some things to improve in spite of falling skill levels.
I do think your modern car analogy was very apt. Oftentimes precision comes at the price of personality and uniqueness - at least as far aw we forum oddballs are concerned.
Also - sorry for hijacking the thread, John!
