That didn’t work out well for Craftsman (or Sears in general), Milwaukee, and a bunch of other brands!

The tool market is an example of that not being the case

Craftsman, Portal Cable, Bosch, Stanley, the list goes on and on, of once independent brands that have been bought out by mass marketers to sell lower quality tools under those names

Another point - there is a difference between being 'old' (a 40 year old veteran solder is 'old', for instance, even if they're still in extremely good physical condition), and being 'old' as in 95 years old and can barely get out of bed.

From a PE/market perspective, the sweet spot seems to be the 95 year old with a good reputation that still carries weight.

I imagine it's because of the good spread between current price and expected returns, as the 'old' brands this is done with aren't usually very profitable, if at all.