Yamaha Audio products from the past? vs. more current.

It's hard for me to believe mass production audio with printed circuit boards, no point to point wiring etc. would beat "small batch" hand crafted items....of course there's an exception to most things. BTW, I remember how I lusted after those burnished case Yamahas way back when I was not sophisticated enough to look beyond the marketing "specs" published in the trade mags.

Absolutely Yamaha is making great 2 channel gear today. An example is the highly spoken of A-S2100 integrated amp. Highly praised with many personal reviews of it on various different forums too.

I still own an M80 power amp that I bought new in 1984 along with a matching pre amp (C80) and tuner. About 3 years ago I had the amp completely restored and it came back as new. I used it for 6 months and came across a deal on a Pass 250.8 which I purchased but to be honest there is little difference in the sound of these two amps driving my Aerial 7T's at the volume I listen at most of the time.
I think the Yamaha gear was really good back in the day and you can still find these amps for cheap dough on ebay. Unfortunately these are not without issues. The speaker connections, bonding glue used on the circuit boards and of course the age of internal components will almost surely degrade what once was a very decent sounding component. In my rig there is a difference between the two amps but it is not easy to distinguish at low to moderate volume. Perhaps a more demanding pair of speakers might make the difference more obvious? I still have a review for both the preamp and amp that was published in Stereo Review, November 1984 and the commentary and measurements are impressive. Some years back I met a fellow that bought the same components while he was stationed in Japan and was in the middle of moving his house. He got tired of lugging the stuff around so he gave them to me. Just a couple months ago a fellow A'goner was looking for a Tuner so I gave away the T80 tuner to him and last I heard he was loving it which makes me smile. 
As @mjcmt mentioned, I think their newer gear is still very good, but not sure how it compares to the other brands. If you are interested in staying on the fattest part of the diminishing returns curve, the Yamaha is probably still a strong contender.  

I just demoed the Yamaha NS5000 speaker and the top of the line $10K each Yamaha separates. I thought the NS5000 was very good and plan to buy it.

Wow, just read a quick review online and they sound impressive. Yamaha is not the first company I think of when talking about loudspeakers but it is great to see that they are getting back in with renewed commitment. Will be interested in your experience once you take delivery and get them broken in. Best of luck!