So what you are saying is... there still are teams of people producing paints with, for all intents and purposes, secret recipes, except now they don't help you

So what you are saying is... there still are teams of people producing paints with, for all intents and purposes, secret recipes, except now they don't help you paint the tedious parts. So arguably it should be harder to paint :-) A lot more people have the opportunity to do it, though. You don't need to be a pauper living on your brother's dime, and in fact there are materials of unimaginable quality available for a few dollars on the low end.