I try and view this type of thing from a glass-half-full kind of perspective. Since I am on a tight budget, I get a lot of my supplies and components the old-fashioned way. Geekcycling. Those older items make it so much easier and productive. Like you said- many of the parts are built to last, unlike today's.
Many things lend themselves to being salvaged from the old equipment that you do have to toss. Power supplies are an obvious one- hard to beat a PC power supply for clean 5v and 12v. Printers have stepper motors and a ton of hardware. Virtually all older equipment has worthwhile components to desolder and use- power resistors and transistors, switches, and always take ribbon cable. Network cable is GREAT hookup wire, eight conductors. A two meter network patch cable is really sixteen meters of wire! Never let a good heatsink go to a dumpster.
Like you said, the older stuff always is always labeled-- while the newer stuff, not so much- and so much harder to manage SMD devices anyway...