I believe that there is a somewhat similar situation with VW diesels. 1992 and prior VW diesels had, except for the control of glow plugs, purely mechanical injection systems. After 1992 they became TDI diesels and with that became infested with electronics. The economy of running a VW diesel was mostly or even completely lost with the TDI models due to the need for expensive fuel filters every 20,000 miles, special expensive engine oil, turbochargers for every TDI model that typically do not last as long as the engine and a greater chance of a timing belt failure as the injection pump pressure was doubled for the TDI models over the older models while the overall timing belt system design was not changed until later.