IMO, there was NOTHING more egregious than trying to turn the lowly cassette into a High Fidelity medium by literally lavishing millions of Research and Development dollars on perhaps one of the biggest hoaxes in hi fi history.
Imagine trying to cram 2" masters recorded at 30 ips onto a thin strip of magnetic oxide tape travelling @ 1 7/8 ips?
I for one welcome 96/24 and 192/24 and thoroughly lament the fact that I did fall for that hoax by spending considerable amounts of [hard earned] money on a Nakamichi cassette recorder/player and oodles of Chromium dioxide tape and even pre~recorded cassette trash....which has sadly joined my 'graveyard' piles of VHS/BETA/HI 8 video tapes!
The future IS here, folks and rejoice in the advances we've made to ensure our hobby, most especially SURROUND SOUND is somewhat thriving and trashes all those ancient low grade tape based technologies.
May they rest in pieces and
VIVA those 5" audio/video digital discs!