I remember vividly the day I caught my first fish on a fly. I was actually teaching fly tying to Scouts. Yes, I could tie. Couldn't catch fish, but I could tie. I had been flogging the water with a fly rod for about 2 years at that point. I tied a nymph that looked like a bug on the bottom of a rock and not of any particular pattern. Less than 5 minutes later, I had my first fish. They drug me kicking and screaming back in to finish helping the boys tie some flies and we then went to dinner. Looking out the window of the lodge, I saw a nice hatch coming off and the fish were going nuts! I tied on a Royal Coachman dry and proceeded to catch another 5 or 6 fish while everyone else was whining about not catching anything. The next day, the fish didn't like my nymph but they were going nuts over a Leadwing Coachman that I was fishing just subsurface.

Nope, the old flies are not obsolete. I have better luck with those than almost any of the newer flies. And besides that, the darn things are pretty and fun to tie!