Actually, they do. They just have to lower their ask so much in order to get one. Watching a tick chart and seeing all the gaps can be very enlightening to a newcomer.
But as for your comment about the 70s and 80s, I sometimes wonder if it's best not to know all that. I doubt there are many modern traders who know that PEs used to reflect the amount of time it would take a company to "grow into" their earnings estimates. Now you have AMZN with a PE of 160+. Or that investors used to buy companies for the dividends. Seems the only strategy available to today's investors is buy low, sell high, but if they don't know how to detect a bottom, they don't even have that.