change has only ever been bad for GA. GA is now just a really expensive sport for old people who bought their planes 40 years ago when Beechcraft ran ads in National Geographic. Of course they are going to be resistant to change, and possibly rightfully so because GA is 1 or 2 steps away from being completely dead.

As one of those grumpy old pilots, I can understand it. Change (especially regulatory change) in GA usually translates into one of the following: 1. Making this very expensive hobby even more expensive, 2. Making this inaccessible hobby less accessible, 3. Moving more from the hobbyists to commercial interests (airliners).

There have been great exceptions (Medical reform + BasicMED, small recent changes around experimental/amateur-built category, and the upcoming MOSAIC reform), but I think the old fogies have a point about the damage change tends to bring to this activity.

This is fine though. Much as I loved when my grandpa would fly me around in his cessna, and taking flying lessons myself, there's no "right" to a GA hobby, or any hobby with huge externalities. Some things belong in the past.

No sympathy. Where I live, there are strong noise restrictions on holidays and Sundays. A huge proportion of the population support this - it is very nice to have days without lawnmowers, chainsaws or whatever.

Who is exempt? Aviation. One plane makes noise over tens of thousands of people. The absolute worst are the stunt planes.

Hell, some pilots insist on continuing to fly without radios.

There's a strong overlap of these people also doing stupid stuff like flying near and on the final approach courses of instrument approaches.

I don't disagree with your statement, but I'll note that as it pertains to engines in the GA world, there's not a lot of options that weren't designed in the 40s.

That may be because in airmanship, generally, doing things by the book keeps you alive.