>Back in the 80s and early 90s I put up with a poorer gameplay experience because arcade machines still had noticeably better graphics. (Dragon's Lair might be the poster child for this phenomenon.) But that just isn't the case anymore.

Yeah, I mean even with games that had perfectly equivalent gameplay with debatably better controls like Street Fighter 2 arcade vs home, you still got 90% of the experience with the home version. Nowadays the best reasons to play at arcades are prohibitively expensive hardware-specific games like DDR, other more advanced Japanese rhythm games like BeatMania, racing games, and mecha piloting simulators.

The only other thing that could work well in an arcade model nowadays would be a high end VR setup, but ideally you'd have your own sealed booth for that with an omnidirectional treadmill. They were starting to take off before COVID shut most of them down for good. Here's hoping VRcades do eventually become more of a thing again.