Tony, Your note reminds me of the quote from Hilaire Belloc that we use in a NASS brochure:
"Civilisation loses its treasures by an unconscious process. It has lost them before it has appreciated that they were in the way of being lost: and when I say "its treasures" I mean the special discoveries and crafts of mankind. - Hilaire Belloc 1940 On Clocks and Watches, in The Silence of the Sea & Other Essays