Todays new vinyl LP's better than LP's 40 yrs ago?

In the case of reissues, it depends a lot on the current condition of the original tapes. I have a 45 (Bill Evans' (Quintessence) that doesn't sound as good as the 33 1/3 Fantasy original. On the other hand, many of the reissue 45s and 33s sound absolutely terrific.

And some LPs from the 70s and 80s were pretty crappy to begin with.

Back in the pre-CD era there were constant complaints about vinyl quality. The vaunted Mercury Living Presence series came in for LOT of criticism about noisy surfaces. Warps and off-center pressings were rife. One of the reasons CDs were so highly praised at the beginning was the abysmal quality of vinyl at that time. You had to be there to remember how bad things were. I was.

Today's reissues are by and large much better in terms of pressing quality, flatness and pops/clicks. I know folks have problems with this, but if they think things are bad, they should have been buying records in the past. I'm not talking sonics; sound quality (of reissues) hinges on the condition of the tapes.

By the 1970s, quality control was going to pot, consistent with the increased production and sale of records and the petroleum/plastic problems around 1974 when OPEC cut oil production and a lot of regrind vinyl began to be used.