This is one thing I can agree on-- most presets are designed to appeal to "I went to a bar three weeks ago and the beat-up old machine looked like THIS" type cases, not anything like a well-maintained machine from the mid-80s would have looked.
We did try to ship some reasonable defaults but people kept complaining that they didn't look "CRT-enough" and so you now have to tone back your settings. This is one of those areas where you really can't win, everyone had a different experience.