I think overall you're right but I suspect the proliferation of luxury electronic features has subjected higher class slices of the population to more failures than they saw before. In 2004 these people bought Camrys and drove them uneventfully. The base car hasn't changed but now that car has half a dozen switches and motors in both front seats the failure of any one of which requires it to be fixed. If the lever in your '04 was finicky you just pulled/pushed slightly harder and were not the wiser.