More than anything else the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was used as a testing board for all their newly develop techniques. I honestly believe by the time that the prequels were being made he felt that the technology had progressed to the point that the movies were going to be movies, not experiments.
As far as new versus old, I am nto arguing that new is necessarily better than old. What I have always argued though is that new can be a good thing. Before George, no one else had taken the chances with digital movie making. He caught a lot of flack for it, but in the end, others are starting to see some of the benefits. It is like the difference between VHS and DVD. You will always have people that prefer VHS (or standard-fullscreen), but does that mean that people shouldn't be making strides to come up with a better process for storing and watching movies? Now, there is a choice for movie makers. Will making this movie be better if done on film, or done digitally? Film tends to have a more classic feel, akin to the classic black & white movies. Digital is very crisp, but tends to make things a bit too surreal sometimes in my opinion.
The point is that just because someone comes up with a new way of doing things, it doesn't mean that you have to do it that way. No one is holding a gun to anyone's heads here. People like to keep doing things the way they are comfortable with, while others like to push the envelope. In all truth, we would be nowhere without people like George trying things a new way.
Just think of indoor plumbing! I'm sure someone thought at the time "Huh, wha duh a neeeed one ah dem fancee house crappers when a I gots tah hole woods to do mah business in?" Well, now you have choice...
