Responding as someone who has taught an actual old dog new tricks and as someone who is one of those old dogs you seem eager to downgrade, I like another cliche: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sure, some new ideas are great and should be implemented. But not every new idea that comes along is great, even if it appears so on the surface, and a fair number of those "great new ideas" should be tossed in the dumpster. New Coke anyone?
I've been part of the repack sorting process in several different permutations at my store, at least 4, and the current method of sorting them on the line absolutely stinks. It is the worst, by an order of magnitude. When I told the current main beauty TM how we used to sort product into carts, etc., she thought that sounded way easier than repack boxes on u-boats - because it was way easier. We had a visit a couple weeks or so ago and the DTL (or whatever she is) kept going on about pushing domestics straight out of the repacks, moving from aisle to aisle, without doing any sorting first. She had a thing about handling product twice, once to sort and once to push. How many times does product get pushed around in the box as items for the current aisle are removed? The TM who most often pushes that area's repacks works it in a way that makes sense to her, and she does a really good job of it. How many trucks has that DTL actually worked? And how many has she done with the "new and improved" way? I'm guessing the answer to both questions is a big fat zero. The suits have all the answers, but they've never done the work to know if those answers are as great as they make out.
I hope Target doesn't turn out to the retail equivalent of New Coke. Not terribly optimistic.