"Smith Chart : In this computer era, this extremely high-effort demanding,
highly-inaccurate, old-time graphics tool became completely obsolete,
because it is a totally useless one in every other aspect except that one
of "just take-a-look demo" - or of fancy impression making to unsuspected,
innocent, inexperienced beginners, of course"
Don't know where this idea comes from but it's bollocks. Looking at a smith chart I can instantly get a "feel" of the characteristics of a circuit. There is a reason that when asked to troubleshoot measurements I'll always request to see the smith chart first rather than the logmag plot. I can easily tell apart under-coupled vs over-coupled magnetic loop antennas looking at a smith chart, but they look identical on a logmag plot. Logmag + phase has all the information in theory, but it would take me some minutes of thinking to tell if the magloop is under-coupled or over-coupled. Of course, if I want to know the 10dB bandwidth of the antenna I'll look at logmag instead, there is a time and place for everything.
btw the impedance scale of the middle line on a smith chart is (1+x)/(1-x). It compresses [0, infinity) into [-1, 1]. If you think in terms of reflection coefficient rather than impedance, then the scale of the smith chart is linear and it's nothing more than a polar plot.
OwO