I still always travel with channel 19 in the truck. It still works better
than a radar detector. Today, I'm frustrated with hams. Back then, my ham
friends were techies. It's hard to find a techie on the ham bands
now-a-days.

How do hams become techies when all they have to do is memorize some
answers to a preprinted test? I'm for making it an essay/fill-in-the-blank
test. Drop the code. Don't do away with code-only portions of the band.

Code shouldn't be forced on you, but it shouldn't be brushed away.