Basketball evolved in a good way. It’s also not really the same game as it was at the start. The 3 point line, lane expansion, and numerous other rules changes have drastically altered effective strategies.
The components and rules of the game are not the same.
It would be like saying 3D chess is literally the same game as regular Chess.
The problem is that it has taken away the uniqueness of the game compared to other card games, and actually doesn't follow the thematic parts of the game.
The gameplay uniqueness of magic was that it was a primarily spell driven, highly interactive game for the first 10 years or so before the great shift towards permanents happened. Spells had an allure to them, an element of deception and surprise from using instants. Draw, land, pass with the ability to do some End of Turn and follow it with another powerful set of spells on your turn, if you wish. Permanents are much more typical of these types of card games, from Pokemon to Hearthstone, every card game has always stolen the concept of permanents and these other games have often done it better.
From a lore perspective, instead of being a Planeswalker ourselves casting powerful spells against eachother (only occasionally summoning an ally in the form of a creature), we are just summoning a bunch of creatures and PWers to do all of the work for us. It feels less fun being forced to play a Summoner class of Wizard.
Yes, you highlight the shift well. The power creep has mostly generated an imbalance towards creatures/PWers, whereas prior the imbalance occurred from instant/sorcerers/sphere effects. Very different dynamics to the typical Vintage game because of that.
I also empathize with the long gap between turns from PO, Dredge, ect. Sitting there for 10 minutes watching my opponent combo is quite frankly just unfun. Although that’s always been an issue with Vintage. Hearthstone has implemented a clock for each turn based (I think it’s about a minute?). That makes it near impossible to do these stupidly long turns in your deck with 1 real win con (or none in some cases).
@fsecco I mean, it literally not the same game, but sure, there is was nostalgia involved. The game doesn't have really any nostalgia feel for me anymore since its evolved so far.
While I agree, we as people may have evolved, the game itself has also been evolving. New printings and rules changes have made sure of that. I was first introduced to Vintage around 2002 with mana burn, damage on the stack, a shared B&R list with legacy and that format was defined by entirely different cards than exist today. 2002 Vintage is very distinct from 2020 Vintage. Take any two points in Vintage’s history and you will find difference. I think that I’ve clung on to the idea that maybe in the future the game would get better, evolve in a direction that built on the fun concepts of the early game, but for me, it has gotten worse. That is fine, people can enjoy the game and we can move on, but it is disappointing.
I've almost completely given up. I check results here every now and then. Play a tournament every now and then, but MODO is such a terrible game client (and yet Arena is somehow even worse when I tried that). Hasbro is not a computer gaming company, and is proving that point with these trash iterations of game clients.
Paper magic is completely unattainable to me because the cost is so prohibitive (Ravager shops for instance is now listed as a $38k dollar deck on MTGO; that's a down payment to a house). Add to the paper issue is that I would have to devote entire days to playing a game again (waking up early, rushing out the house, "working" hard to win, then getting home late). As I college student, I could get away with that, I simply don't have the energy to do that in my older age.
If the game itself was funner, maybe, I could justify dealing with the bad interfaces or the time+money cost of playing in person. But the game has lost its allure. With every new set, more and more cards arise that just break the games general mechanics. On top of that some of the mechanics of the game itself were just faulty to begin with (most notably play vs draw, where being on the play is gives a heavy bias towards your win %). As a result, it has become a deeply flawed game that revolves around a handful of cards that the DCI refuses to take action on. Specifically, Force of Will remains the dumbest, most boring card ever printed.
There are better ways to spend your days. Thanks for bringing up the topic for me to vent on. 
Removal proofing is big for Doomsday as well. You don’t need to stack your pile to answer Swords and other removal.
Consult on a stick, Divining Witch, is also a Wizard so you can play a 1-card combo that is uncounterable with Cavern of Souls. The biggest issue of getting blown out by random removal spell is gone by playing this card instead of Maniac.