I've always loved that valve ... the
'beam-tetrode.' I mean, that's a much more impressive name than the
'bipolar transistor,' ... it's a bit more
'Flash Gordon.' 
I'm not knocking modern electronics, far from it (there isn't any way I'm going back to a 14 inch black and white television with 405 lines and was the size of a washing machine instead of a 65 inch high definition set which if you look at it sideways is barely 2 inches deep) but I kind of liked firing up the old
Oceanspan with its three fingered salute of 807s as opposed to the small ICOM transceiver I now use (same power output) not much bigger than a shoe box that seems to stare at me as if I'm some sort of inferior being.
That isn't to say I'm going to sacrifice the ICOM for an old Marconi banger .... NOT GOING TO HAPPEN !!
But I do see the romance of the
'valve' ... as I do the steam engine. Bit it is something of a rose tinted view of the past.