I feel like the 600 DPI HP Laserjet 4 produced better printouts 30 years ago than what I'm getting from modern laser printers, but perhaps that's just fuzzy memories...
That point in time was a bit odd; it was exciting to do "desktop publishing".
It's not your imagination. They did print better even at 600 dpi.
Output quality will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but I wasn't impressed when some years ago I purchased a Samsung laser and noticed that it had tiny little notches on the letters that my previous printer did not have. Of course the Samsung repair shop couldn't do anything about it as no firmware updates were available.
I think the general effort from manufacturers to print pages fast and cheap also meant that quality had to change for the worse. Perhaps the toner didn't adhere as well anymore because it needed higher heat for a shorter duration, etc.
I have a Brother "laser" LED-printer; DCP-1510. Super affordable, supposedly 2400 × 600 DPI, but in real life nowhere near the quality of a 600 DPI HP Laserjet 4 from 1993.
I don't mind spending more money on a high quality printer - the problem is that I have no idea what that printer is. Noone is doing print quality tests these days.
I don't really have printers at all any more, but cheapish Brother "laser" printers were my preference for low volumes on Linux and still being able to get networking/duplex/postscript etc. I too had no faith that spending more would get a better printer elsewhere.
I have good memories of Laserjet 4 and 5 series printers from the 90s though.
