Thanks for the welcome to the ham bands! And thanks for the info on how to switch my username. I had somehow missed that when looking at the profile page there.
As to the CW requirement, I happen to agree that it should've never been dropped. When I bought my radios awhile back and got a couple antennas up for the HF rig, the CW portions of the bands was the first place I went to. I learned code 38 years ago, intending to get my license back then. But then I went to college, met a girl and got married and raised kids and life got in the way and it never happened. But I never forgot code after weeks of listening to cassette tapes that I had back then. It came back to me within a couple hours of monitoring the CW portions of the HF bands and I found out there's a lot of REALLY bad operators out there. I have to give them credit for at least using CW. But I can copy W1AW's fast code transmissions with no problem. The human generated code I can also copy because you kind of know what the word is thru all the mistakes. But some of these guys are pretty bad (I hate to say).
I actually asked the administering VE at the testing session if I could get extra points for copying and transmitting code at 20 wpm. Of course he said "no" but it turns out he was the only one of the VE's there (six of them from the club) that even knew code. He said the international community wanted to drop the requirement, since it is no longer even required for operators on ships at sea. So the FCC followed suit in light of digital modes and satellite now being commonly used on ships.
So not necessarily a "dumbing down" of the requirements for an amateur license, but more a change pushed by the international community in light of newer technology. But my feeling is that even with the newer technology, CW remains one of the most reliable weak signal, low power, low bandwidth forms of communication that exists. So I'll be found on the CW portions of the bands (actually, CW is the only mode that can be used on any freq, regardless of band plans). Simply because I like it, I spent a LOT of time learning it almost 40 years ago, and I sort of agree with the "old way". But, unfortunately, amateur radio, despite the requirement being dropped, is about the only place (other than some navigational beacons in aviation and marine) that still uses it to any extent.
There was actually much ceremony among code operators when its use was ended all over the world. Code was used as an international standard for maritime distress (my wife and I are also avid sailors) until 1999, when it was replaced by the Global Maritime Distress Safety System. When the French Navy ended code use the final message transmitted was "Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence." In the US the final commercial code transmission was on July 12, 1999, signing off with Samuel Morse's original 1844 message, "what hath god wrought. SK"
Just a little trivia for the amateur operators that still love code. Other than commercial radiotelephone operators, which are still required to pass a code test, the amateur radio community will probably end up being the last holdout that keeps it alive.