Isn’t it also true that newer languages might have learned from what made older languages hated? Isn’t a massive confound the possibility that language design

Isn’t it also true that newer languages might have learned from what made older languages hated? Isn’t a massive confound the possibility that language design as a field is meaningful and people are actually improving languages still? I know the article mentions this, almost in passing, but it seems hard for me still to separate the size of the bias towards greenfield and against older languages and I don’t feel they adequately addressed it. The fact that python is definitely a “brownfield” language for me but still one I reach for and cherish as well designed seems to suggest that language design matters more to me.