I'll applaud the OP use of classical literary ties in his witty post. I agree that E or even E+ may be less than rewarding aboard most flights, only slightly better than a seat in the lav, door closed, no FA service.

But then my perspective owes something to ancient antecedents, almost pre-Dean Swift.

When you've flown from DAL to DCA via BNA in a DC-3, on a hot Summer day, all (21?) seats occupied, across a landscape which gives birth to s steady stream of up drafts and down drafts, leading many aboard to resort to barf bags, arriving on the melting tarmac at BNA in a bird in which the cabin reeked more than the orlop of a plague ship, so vile that I expected to hear the cause sloshing in the scuppers, today's E/Y cabins aren't so bad. Cabin service? Not much, although the FA was ready to help carry out the departed should there have been any so fortunate.

Then there was this military flight, the cavernous and drafty freight hold of a C-130, NORVA the long, multi-stop way around the Arctic fringe to Rhein Main. Seating? Those long canvas benches which line to bulkhead, designed to induce parachutists to want to jump out soon. FA, one only, also the Loadmaster, far more concerned about freight shifting than pax being crushed or otherwise discomforted. Food? Box lunches, and the ones taken aboard at Keflavik tasted as if they had been left out on an Icelandic glacier for an extended period. Beverages? Coffee, already oily and bitter on departure, increasing tepid as time went on (and on, and on). Water? An urn, last washed before Lockheed buckled it in place, its contents could only be described as wet, likely drawn directly from one of thos murky creeks near Norfolk. IFE? None, and even in daylight, the few tiny "windows" allowed only mild and murky illumination. Even if turned on, the red and green "jump" lights hardly enabled reading. Duration? Well, day turned to night, again to day and finally night again, even with the short nights of high latitudes. Baggage? if you brought it, you carried it (across the ramps to board and debark).

Built upon those foundations, while i complain about the discomfort and often less than modest service in economy, I'm not totally enthralled with tales of the grand glory of air travel in yesteryear.