That's certainly my view, at least: good and bad are orthogonal to new and old. There are periods where new tends to imply good, others where new tends to imply

That's certainly my view, at least: good and bad are orthogonal to new and old. There are periods where new tends to imply good, others where new tends to imply bad (think of the material culture of the '70s), and others where there's no particular correlation; but if something doesn't contravene your values and objectives, there's no particular reason not to adopt it. Of course, sometimes things turn out to be more hostile to you than you expected them to be, so caution is in order -- but not paralysis.