Seems there were new-fangled hiccups along the way w/carbs. But there were improvements along the way that made you happy also.

When you had a push-pull manual choke, you knew when it was choked or not. Or, you could run partial choke if engine experience showed that was better starting. Shooting ether in the butterfly(ies) usually called for no choke. If it had auto choke, you had to jam a screwdriver in the choke plate to keep it open for "coaxing". Manual was better but disappeared. Manual was not good for "new drivers" since they'd often forget to open it. Auto chokes were cussed.

Accelerator pumps & linkage controlled secondaries were good. You could pump the accelerator 3 times and it would start. Pump it 4 times and you might have an engine fire. Again...experience won. When you were adjusting testing, manual secondaries could be watched & verified for full open if the carb was in question. Vacuum secondaries made for smoother acceleration.....if that's what you wanted. The auto-chokes & vac secondaries all worked OK until they didn't. Vac secondaries were cussed.

Not many production car/truck engines had mechanical fuel injection, but they were prevalent on higher performance airplanes. They were better than carbs, but could be a bugger starting also. Either too much or not enough fuel at starting prime.

Present day electronic fuel injection solved lots of the world's engine fuel/air problems. I wish there were more conversions for older carb engines. I would not want to return to carbs on production engines.