Point, but note that the editor, OS architecture, and processor are under very active development, and have been continuously improved over the past three decad

Point, but note that the editor, OS architecture, and processor are under very active development, and have been continuously improved over the past three decades, and are implemented in a language whose compiler has also kept pace with the times. In the case of the aforementioned business, the emulator to run their existing code on an x86 was the right move, because it could buy them a ton of time to move things to a newer architecture -- it's not like COBOL doesn't exist on x86, even today (OpenCOBOL). Moving slowly because you want to reuse a large, existing codebase with many happy customers is smart. Refusing to budge an inch because you're terrified of adapting to new market conditions... isn't.