I think that fails Occam's razor. What if the reason there are more people "doing it wrong" (for various values of "it") is simply because there are more people

I think that fails Occam's razor. What if the reason there are more people "doing it wrong" (for various values of "it") is simply because there are more people doing it, period? There are a lot more programmers (and people shaving, opening cans, and writing letters) than there were in the past. As a result, the experience of doing those things changes both because of eternal September syndrome as well as the economies of scale (cheap, low quality crap) that emerged in response to that growth in userbase.