Hi trench & bones :
You both are right, two sides of a coin. What is happening is that we have a newer generation of collectors and gatherers who are not into books and information other than what they glean from the internet, little snippets here and there. Also there is less left to look at and find as say back in the 60s to 80s when most of us began our collecting.
Yes I do miss my older friends who are now in Arisaka heaven, they certainly helped me tremendously to learn the ropes and all they had was Banzai, MRofJ, and Japanese Bayonets. Look at the profusion on new books we have available, but these modern folks don't want to read, in some cases cannot read worth sh_t, but are High school graduates none the less.
Vicasoto