My morning route passes by a seniors' home and a few semi-regulars get on there. The driver inevitably has to help one old girl with the steps if we're on an old bus. The new buses kneel and she can totter on unassisted. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't call the new one "a disaster".
Compared to the GMCs and Orions, the new buses actually have heat and AC, the windows stay clear except for the coldest days and are much quieter. I have yet to hear anyone complain about them. Regina Transit still has a few older buses, I always hope for a new one.
I also didn't like low floor buses until I had kids or suffered a leg injury. Getting two kids and a stroller up the steps or hobbling up with crutches is not fun at all. Vancouver still has some high floor buses -- community shuttles and highway coaches (Orion Vs). While the highway coaches make sense for capacity, I wish we would get the same low floor community shuttles Edmonton has.
Vancouver has a fancy new fleet of New Flyer Xcelsior, decent buses and the first city bus fleet to have air conditioning, the highway coaches had air conditioning since they first arrived in 2001. Translink has officially mandated that all new buses going forward have air conditioning.
More than half of our train sets are older ones without A/C and when it's hot out, I will gladly wait however long it takes for a new train to come. Luckily our trains run every 1.8 minutes in the rush hour.