I would say that the industry is much better at selling you a lot less instruction for the money....and in many cases for new divers what is taught is a bad joke.
As to gear, the best stuff now is more like what we dived in the 70's than what was being sold in the 80's and 90's---gear like bp/wings appeared in the 70's and resurfaced with Halcyon around 1998 or so, as much smarter than the ad driven nonsense being pushed by the industry in the 90's.
Also, a computer is no big deal, and many good divers prefer a bottom timer and depth guage to a computer. Learn ratio deco and you would never want a computer.
The worst gear to come out was in fins....the industry began selling fins created for the physically challenged ( great for someone with a real problem, but for lazy people in poor shape, it was an excuse to remain in poor shape

. For the people who were always cramping and unable to push their fins easily, they were sold biofins and other splitfins---essentially a tiny gear ( compared to the bigger gear of a useful fin) , so that they would use a high kick turnover to propel themselves, albeit quite a bit slower than a diver should be able to swim. If they really wanted less work, they could have saved the money and just dived barefoot, this providing even less stress and only being a tiny bit slower than split fins.