I believe they call it first-class now. I had the opportunity to purchase a first class upgrade (first time not flying economy) on an Alaska flight from Seattle to Oakland, and the service difference between the coach experience just two days prior was insane.
There was no meal in coach (flying during breakfast), and the attendants came around once for drinks and once for trash. They were polite, but didn't make much small talk because they were pretty busy.
In first class, there was a complementary meal served on a ceramic plate with metal silverware (this flight was well after dinner), and a variety of complementary alcoholic drinks were offered as well. The attendants called you by your name (they verified the name from the flight manifest was correct the first time they came around), and they made small talk about your trip.
i'm splurging and flying "premium coach" (or w/e the hell they call it on Virgin) on my next vacation; we'll see how it compares....
i'd love to fly first or business again when i eventually go to europe, but as a hypothetical exercise i checked prices, and a firstclass roundtrip tickect is roughly $20k and business, though much better, is still $6k (i just checked lufthansa.com for sfo<->fra leaving august 4 and returning sep 1, so i'm sure better deals exist). If I flew coach, the whole vacation could be $6k.
Heh. Flying is a terrible experience because what most people pay for is the transportation equivalent of a Wal-Mart jar of pickles.
The price of flying, especially as a proportion of income, has tanked since the golden age we all yearn for. There's a reason airlines no longer serve meals, give out free pillows, and are still going bankrupt every few years - the margins are razor thin and the competition is extreme.
It's the same reason why they no longer hand out hotel rooms like candy, or why there are more cascading delays (hint: keeping spare planes and crews on standby is really, really expensive).
If you paid as much now as you did for the same flight in the 70s, you'd still get the very same service.