A recent survey conducted by Hourences, asked questions of more than a thousand Unreal, Source, and Quake engine level designers and developers. Questions in the survey centered around level design from the perspective of both amateurs and professionals.
Level designers seem to enjoy today's more complex level design more than "oldschool" level design. 33 Percent of those surveyed said that it used to be more fun when games and the tools were simpler, whereas 61 percent enjoy today's technology more.
Surprisingly enough, Level designers do not seem to believe that level design communities are past their prime because of today's consoles era (70 percent). I personally believe that the various modding communities have shrunk considerably over the last few years, largely because of the lack of big PC releases.