For the last 20+ years I've been using a vintage machine older than I am -- and I ws born in 1960. My old Remington (it belonged to the grandma of a friend before me) does have a zigzag and that's about all it has -- except that it has a most wonderful straight stitch and is easy for me to maintain. While it is nice to have the extra stuff, we don't need it and most of us learn to use what we have. It was entirely adequate for piecing and I even did simple grid quilting of a king sized quilt on it even!
This past November I was gifted with a lovely modern machine with the bells and whistles. I have vision issues and I must admit that the new machine will let me sew for a few more years. The automatic threader is wonderful as is the amount of light it has. It is much easier to do the quilting (as opposed to the piecing), the big thing is that it has a 12" deep throat instead of the 6-7 inches I'm used to. But from time to time I just want to do things that it doesn't want me to do, like today I want to make some stencils by stitching through paper with no thread and I think it's just going to be easier to pull out one of my vintage machines than figure out how to get around the fool-safes.