My beloved E-2 takes exception to that. Okay, it’s not mine mine but I treat it just the same. Plenty of people have said that about it and sure nobody flies the thing in any kind of wind, or any serious heat or cold, or with much of a load, but you should see the journey log entries in the late 1930s! It was used like an airplane. The owner back then thought nothing of taking air a couple hundred miles away in whatever weather he had, or loading up his two buddies, fishing poles, and a case of beer to head up to the nursing college for the weekend. Yeah, mishaps happened like the time he landed in strong gusts and the plane was overturned while taxiing in, but that just shows that the little airplane got used.
To be clear, I’m not picking on you specifically VB. It’s just that your short quote really concisely sums up a larger trend. That’s what you get for being good with words, I guess.
Sometimes I worry that the reason general aviation is shrinking is because we’ve all become snobs; nothing is ever good enough so we live with the fantasy of how much better we wish it was. Meanwhile Peter defines his mission (low and slow, short lifespan, sized for himself only) then builds the thing, just to have our jealous selves say his plane sucks.