Modern literally means the most recent release. And games should be pushing those to the limits on max settings. I semi agree that even the next release of GPUs should be able yo get more out of the game, ie design the game for the future.
If you’re expecting a 2080 to run a game on max, what limits are we pushing with every new gen? You’d be hampering yourself and leave a bunch of dead weight on modern and semi modern GPUs.