Why shouldn't decent tone controls, and maybe even loudness controls come back in fashion?Fashion is the operative word.
In the recording studio, we had EQ of several flavors: Peak, Shelf, Parametric, Sub-Octave graphic. Various equalizers by Neve, API, Massenberg, UREI, etc. plus console module EQ by Trident, MCI, Neve, API, etc. plus mic 'EQ' for Neumann, AKG, Sony, Shure, etc. plus mic pre EQ from all the aforementioned and more. Each has its own characteristics and colorations to create the palette desired.
The problem with a 'generic' tone control on a HiFi is that 99% of the time, its not in the required frequency range and it's pure serendipity if the chosen frequencies align with source, recording, loudspeaker and room defects.
At our local venue, we have a small 32 channel mixer. EQ is digital and extremely flexible, incorporating most of the functionality of a whole rack of outboard EQ. It does not color tonality in the same manner as individual analog devices, which all add colorations along with level and phase changes. Sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.
I for one would love to have a couple channels built into my CD player that I could control with my phone. I could then save settings in CDP and it would recall them for each disk. A nice feature would be to save templates, e.g. "Sh.tty Columbia Remaster" for easy recall as generic corrections. A reasonable DAC with such flexibility might open my wallet in a heartbeat!