And yet with all these techniques easily available to them, modern filmmakers still churn out a lot of trash.

It’s a matter of taste and style, not technique or quality of gear.

But I don’t agree that old==good and new==bad. There was plenty of trash back in the day, and plenty of great stuff now.

Breaking bad had fantastic cinematography and it didn’t really use advanced techniques like dolly zoom, crane, drone, etc. It had buckets of style though. Compare it to one of its contemporaries, Dexter, which had completely unremarkable, boring, functional cinematography.

The single most important advancement for modern cinematography is to be able to instantly see what your shot is going to look like without having to develop film. This allowed filmmakers to shoot at night, use natural or diegetic lighting, etc. it used to be risky and require a lot of testing to do anything other than bathe your scene in bright light and then use even brighter stage lights for highlights, to give cameras enough light, and to ensure that performances and stunts are visible in the final product. This is way way more impactful than drones and dollies.

I'd agree with all your statements. I don't think your statements disagree with the observation that on average cinematography has gotten better over time. I might have painted too broad of a brush, and I think you raise really good points.