> My grandfather’s yeshiva town was one such place, until the last few years when the children joined hashomer hatzair and left Torah.
Right. And when you rightly say that a lot of MO now going OTD, you might ponder why people in a small shtetl on the banks of Neumunas “suddenly” went to Shomer Hatzair. Maybe, their “yeshivish” education did not prepare them sufficiently to the onslaught of modernity? I am not saying it as an accusation, but as consideration that maybe the “ideal” past was not ideal for the new circumstances and both “modern yeshivish” (this seems like a right term) as well as “modern O” are different reactions to modernity, trying to keep Yiddishkeit going, and given both are still searching for an answer, we should look what both bring to the table, rather than fighting.
This is like two people on a sinking boat, arguing whether to sail to the shore or to try to close the hole. Try both and see what works.