I se what you mean, Jerry. Anymore, most shops won't even keep equipment or parts around for vehicles over 20 years old anymore. It's even worse when you're in a chain shop with district people who view obsolete equipment and parts as "clutter". I don't know how many times that my predecessor and I had to stop people from tossing out tools simply because they didn't know what they were for due them being for older cars. It got to the point that I simply just asked if I could have it if they weren't going to keep it. Got some good front end tools that way.
I won't say that we didn't keep any shims at all on hand, we had the IFS shims on hand, plus the shims for the twist beam rear axles in FWD cars, plus assorted cam bolts for IFS trucks and strut cars. Sometimes, it was a hard sell to convince people that they needed the additional part (plus labor) over the cost of the initial alignment. We just never kept I beam shims. In fact, my truck was one of two beam axle vehicles that even got put up on that rack, the other being a '31 Model A hotrod.
I guess it's just a situation of how time and technology changes, then we go and throw a wrench in the works with our 40+ year old trucks.
