> In many ways the stories are inferior to their modern counterparts.

This feels to me like a slightly tweaked form of an "appeal to novelty". The most insightful people alive today are not automatically more insightful than everyone who has died. Just because we are alive now doesn't discount the importance of previous works (and this is ignoring that today's society is based on our ancestors' philosophy and views).

Not to mention modern stories are often based on older stories, and those who write modern stories by definition were informed by older stories.