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Others have explained this adequately so I will only add a voice of
agreement and some random additional thoughts.

First of all, they are fundamentally different instruments. One is
discrete while the other is continuous.

Over the years many things that undergone an analog -> digital
transition, from "old fashioned analog" to "newer, better digital".
That seems to be the root of the general affinity, especially amongst
youngsters, for digital oscilloscopes over analog ones. Digital is just
better, though they can never seem to tell you why, other than "Because
it's...DIGITAL!"

The other issue is availability. Most analog design is much harder
than most digital design (note to nit-pickers: I said MOST), and most
manufacturing of high-end analog hardware is a lot more expensive than
most manufacturing of high-end digital hardware. This has led
manufacturers to prefer to make and sell digital oscilloscopes over
analog ones. Digital oscilloscopes are a lot cheaper to design and
make, especially in China where manufacturing volume far exceeds
engineering talent.

One other issue, though in which direction the causality relationship
goes is debatable, is the demise of CRTs. CRTs are inherently
continuous devices, while LCDs (and most other flat-screen display
technologies) are inherently digital, or discrete, devices.

So, let's face it, graphing voltage against time is a process that was
essentially perfected a long time ago. The only thing we're really
optimizing for anymore in successive generations of oscilloscopes is
whiz-bang features (and we're running out of ideas for those) and profit
margins. Sure, there are ever-faster 50+GHz instruments, but those are
for very specialized applications that almost nobody actually uses, in
comparison to the rest of us...but in general, an oscilloscope made last
month does pretty much the same thing as an oscilloscope made twenty
years ago.

For a long while I've been at the point where I can put pretty much
any oscilloscope I want on my bench. I own probably thirty
oscilloscopes now (I have a "thing" for oscilloscopes!), but I regularly
use three on my "ordinary day-to-day work" bench: A Tek 2465A, a Tek
7854 with various plugins, and a Tek TDS3012. Which do I prefer? None!
I use the best tool for the job at hand, on a task-by-task basis.
Knowing the strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities of each of your
instruments is the key.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA