The changes in clothing, music, scenery, sets, advancing tech, etc. make up for it, I think

The issue is a lack of balance, really. It's too easy to level up every research project and get CGI by 1985 for example. The lot your studio is placed on has a maximum size and can't ever get bigger, while many of the sets are huge - requiring you to constantly demolish them and build new ones. The pre-made movies for lazy players (via the scriptwriting offices) are fairly repetitive, and for example in the early years will keep pushing movies made on the most basic stage on you (while keeping the freshness rating abysmal). It's glacially slow to level up relationships between actors, and since you have only a few of them, you are either hitting a cliff by 1970 once the initial ones retire, or have a bunch of lower quality actors that never reach the top of the charts the game makes you compete with other studios at. The press mechanic requires you to randomly drag paparazzi from the entrance of the studio to the actors/directors, making leveling it up a hassle, etc.

Mods are fairly poor at fixing those issues. But maybe the issue is one of my skill.