Maybe you would.

But nowadays, it would probably be an agile disaster with two or three layers of managers and sales people, maybe even on different firms, if done by best practice, between you and the customer. Forget talking to the operators.

KISS is a beauty of the past.

There is no way the simple and straightforward text based solution would be made. It is more likely it would be a bloated mess with clouds or what not.

> This sounds like indoctrination to me. I generally have a different worldview that it would provide a lot of value.

That's a weird way of putting it, but I honestly think the "modernize" all the things crowd are probably the ones that "sound indoctrinated."

So, if your "different worldview" says reflexively redeveloping the software would provide "a lot of value," then name the value it would provide. They've got a process that's worked for them for 40+ years, what exactly is the value in re-doing software that's only a minor part of that process? Does that "value" justify the cost?

Honestly, what they've got can probably be understood more as an appliance than as an IT system, and anything developed today would almost certainly take the form of an IT system, with all the recurring cost and complexity that entails.