😀 yeah it made sense to me because I grew up in the changeover.

But here's the Wiki entry.

The "idiot light" terminology arises from popular frustration with automakers' use of lights for crucial functions which could previously be monitored by gauges, so a troublesome condition could be detected and corrected early. Such early detection of problems with, for example, engine temperature or oil pressure or charging system operation is not possible via an idiot light, which lights only when a fault has already occurred – thus providing no advance warnings or details of the malfunction's extent.

I added some third party gages to my truck, just connects to the OBD interface.

No soft signals!!

Your newer car will also tell you EXACTLY which sensors are showing bad data and whether it's an electrical fault in the sensor's circuit or implausible input, etc. Unfortunately you need a scan tool for it, but depending on the make you might find a decent free or cheap app to use a generic ELM327 or better, STNN1110 based OBD2 tool, that lets you scan all the modules rather than just OBD2 standard stuff.

So rather than playing parts darts or verifying every sensor by multimeter using known resistance ranges or putting up with bad fuel economy and low power... You just scan the thing and it'll tell you.

I've owned cars from the '90s, '00s and '10s (2019 being the latest) and while my cars from '10s didn't have sensor issues, I'll tell you that I'll take the complex and super hated '00s German cars over the early '90s one ANY day of the week. Super easy to diagnose.

Maybe my vehicles were old enough before that electronic averaging. 90s. The oil pressure and temperature would respond as the engine warmed, or as you revved it. Sitting in traffic on a hot day and you could watch the temp gauge climb, and then drop when you started moving.