Modern hardware is wasted on modern devs. Can we send them back in time to learn how to optimize, and bring back the ones that knew how to properly utilize hardware?

I think a lot of the blame is erroneously placed on devs, or it's used as a colloquialism. Anyone who has worked in a corporate environment as a developer knows that the developers are not the ones making the decisions. You really think that developers want to create a game that is bad, to have their name attached to something that is bad and to also know that they created something that is bad? No, developers want to make a good game, but time constraints and horrible management prioritizing the wrong things (mostly, microtransactions, monetizing the hell out of games, etc) results in bad games being created. Also, game development is more complex since games are more complex, hardware is more complex, and developers are expected to produce results in less time than ever before - it's not exactly easy, either.

It's an annoyance of mine and I'm sure you meant no harm by it, but as a developer (and as someone who has done game development on the side and knows a lot about the game development industry), it's something that bothers me when people blame bad games solely on devs, and not on the management who made decisions which ended up with games in a bad state.

With that said, I agree with your sentiments about modern hardware not being able to take advantage of long-forgotten cool features like four-screen splitscreen, offline modes (mostly in online games), arcade modes, etc. I really wish these features were prioritized.