If not a better time, certainly some things things used to rock.

Gaze at what used to be, what you used to be able to do, and how it went away.

Chemistry set ad from the pre-War-on-Fun days - Boing Boing:

"At first, there were safety concerns, idiot-proofing everything, battening down any potential vectors for litigation... this was the modus operandi for a long time indeed. Then, in addition to this continued trend, got lumped on the associations and insinuations, which continue to manage to insult me on a still regular basis, that home chemists are all clandestine drug manufacturers. This and the march of the safety-police joined forces and marched onward into a safe, drug-free future where chemicals were things you read about in books and answered questions about on the SAT without ever touching.


Then came big bad daddy Terrorism, adding a third prong to the pitchfork thrust sanctimoniously into the collective ass of amateur chemists everywhere, skewering them with the assertion that with the threats of killing others with stupidity, cooking meth, or plotting to blow up your senator, the odds were so low of you NOT being a comic-book villain that it wasn't worth it to even respect claims to the contrary as worth listening to.

...Basically, many people are stupid, and are quite content to assume it impossible that anyone smarter than them isn't doing evil things or just pretending not to be stupid. These evil nerds should therefore be kept tightly bound to ensure a safe world for the mediocre."