Eldartford, the error in your logic is that you compare a musical instrument to a technological product; apples and oranges. The only common denominator is music, but their purpose and operations are absolutely foreign to each other, so foreign that in the one case the item cannot play music aside from a system of contributing electronics.
You allude to the quality of the Strad - which is generally lauded for its craftsmanship/construction techniques. Whereas, development of technology is independent of that variable (there are good manufacturers and poor manufacturers). The violin is a technologically limited device, more a kin to a push reel mower. The components of today are an entirely different class, like the emergence of lawn tractors. The violin has seen virtually no radical departure in design, whereas components have undergone a sea change...
So, if someone makes a less impressive violin today their technique is not impressive. However, the move from push reel mowers to riding tractors is technologically driven (pardon pun). Maybe if someone had developed a better violin in the shape of a boomerang with the strings hung across the gap of the instrument that could be considered technological advancement. But let's not confuse the quality of violins years apart with the development of, say, tube amplification from the sixties to today's class D amps. In the one case, virtually nothing has changed, and in the other radical changes have occurred. etc.
Of course, one is entitled to their opinion of whether the changes are preferable. I see very few places in life where technological advancement is not to be preferred.
