Why Is It?

Diagnosis requires critical thinking which is difficult to teach. It's more like something that's "conditioned" over time and multiple experiences. I had a more shotgun-parts approach as a teenager when I first got my Duster but now I'll spend days or even weeks researching a problem before I pull the trigger on buying something. Also the necessity of having to save money due to limited budget forces you to diagnose as opposed to waste money on parts.

I'm just old enough now (33) to start noticing how "times have changed". At any given point in history most of the humans in any society are stupid and can't think for themselves (but they sure believe they can!!). What changes are the skills that are considered important or essential. I'm sure back in the 1930s the old train engineers were complaining how the dumb young guys didn't know how to keep up a steam locomotive and how diesel was ruining everything because of their relative simplicity. "Same ****, different smell."
True that. As a service writer at the dealership, i turned diagnosis into a game and would add my prediction to the repair order. How times have changed. Complaint, cause, and correction is what everyone has gone to. No more fun. At the dealer you have repetitive symptoms and fixes. Many of the issues at the service desk are easily diagnosed because we have seen it over and over again. Thanks for that. That makes up for the hours (days sometimes) spend diagnosing a strange issue that has never reared it's ugly head before.