I want to apologize for the long post but this is something I think a lot about these days. Feel free to scroll past if you'd like.
My feeling is that the modern cards are immediately placed in high grade holders or sent out for grading with the intention of many to "invest" or "flip". I really think that many of the "stars" of today may be forgotten in five years or less. The modern card market is a cash play that will end terribly for a number of "collectors". I don't care if someone has a /10 or /5 card, if the player is not generational who really cares about the scarcity.
While others have mentioned that the production numbers for those cards between the 70s and 90s were high, I would take pause. Most of those of us who collected in the 70s were not placing our cards in hermetically sealed holders after we pulled them from the packs. Although production numbers in the 70s were higher than the limited /10 or /5 cards today, we are able to look at the stars of that era and find highly collectible, clean cards that are not as "available" as the production numbers may have you believe. Many of those 70s star cards ended up in the spokes of bicycles or in less than perfect condition as a result of a game of flipping.
I say vintage all the way. I say raw all the way if you are collecting for the fun of collecting.
I also say don't sleep on vintage football, basketball or hockey. Hindsight is far more accurate than foresight. Tell that to the guy that left me with an 800 count box of Ray Lankford rookie cards in a lot I purchased a few years ago. Those same type of "investors" are ruining the hobby again and are hoarding the current bunch of Lankfords. Those aren't collectors, they are the ones that think they will retire on their investments.