CB radio is like Isometric Exercise it comes and it goes in 10-20 year cycles! LOL....Once you think it is dead it comes re-surging back. LOL
When I got involved in CB cell phones where already very real and everyone had them. I got into CB in 1991. In fact one of my friends worked at Radio Shack and he said much the same thing. My at the time was you buy it once you have it almost forever by a 18 year olds point of view! No monthly charges back then the cost to actual use the phone not just have it was insane God Help You if yo got hit with roaming charges! Also coverage was not so hot back in the day and a lot of places we went (see teenager drinking, dancing, BBQ and partying friendly) had no coverage rather remote!!
I hung out with a group of teenager's, soldiers and EMT's and their where only 2 of us that had "export radio's". I had my RCI2950 and RuberChicken had his HR2510 the rest where all using Cobra 148's, Palmaor 500's, Cobra 29,25, PC122's etc....In a town that went from a population of 3000 to a population of 29K almost over night you could count the number of Galaxy, Super Star, SummerKamp, and Cobra's with Channels kits and it was less than 50 people. RCI 2950's where not Copper friendly yet and you had to buy them through AES and the like and they where expensive! It was mostly Ham's and Soldiers that wanted to use the amateur bands and occasionally slip onto 11m that bought them. They had not caught on with "Free Banding Crowd yet" those guys where still either doing the Galaxy thing or the HR2510.
Even today a lot of guys prefer the Connex and General Lee and Styrker AM only radio's which makes no sense to me at all. It would be like castrating yourself right before you go to a island full of Amazonian Women! I can see the love for actual vintage gear but to buy a modern radio and handicap it with a vintage user interface and an uneasily large chassis just seems retarded in the classic medical sense of having an IQ below 80 I think it was not retarded as in the derogatory term misused by many! It is currently an actual medical term still.
Solar Cycles are not what killed HF for me. The foul language and white trash that is filling the local airwaves is what killed HF. You have trashy old white men mostly on CB and Amateur that are either hate filled bigots or drunks swearing and acting like fools. The language is so foul I had to start turning off my radio when my oldest boy was in the vehicle even on long road trips. The F(bomb) was flowing like coffee at a truck stop! Lude conversations about lose women and drugs and hate speech that would make a KKK member blush is what killed 11m.
People used to meet up and talk on a net and it was very social. You got to know peoples families and everything on the radio. The language was not that bad and if things got too out of line peoples families took care of it etc....Really adult conversation but still polite where held often after kids should be in bed and usually on a free band channel or on SSB etc as well.
It is not solar sun spot cycles that is kill 11m it is all the trash that is on it talking like a bunch of drunk sailor after they come back from Shore Leave!!! It the stupid echo's and reverbs and self broadcasting, ghost talking, alligator stations, splatter box, foul mouthed trash that is killing CB.
It would help if we had high quality radio's that actual fit into the available space in a modern car or truck as well. I do not want my car to look like some redneck white trash mobile with a hugh chrome radio on the dash. I am not driving a Viper or AMG or Lexus but if I was I would want to be able to mount a radio in it that did not scream "I am a redneck".
The price of radio's has stayed rather static but build quality and the basics like adjacent channel rejections, sensitive receive, low noise floor and solid strong audio have gone out the door! So we have junk radio's, cheaply built with worthless gimicks and lot's of illegal channels with poor receive and channel rejection and audio, bad solar cycle conditions, cheap readily available cellular communications, and rude crude user's driving away families and those with any standards higher than the gutter!
Young adults today do not understand how anything works on a car or their phone or a radio etc....Most of them can not jump start a car or even start a manual transmission vehicle. They have had a phone almost as long as they have had parents so why would thy have interest in something like CB? People have to have a need or desire to do something. Between the high speed broad band phone and internet they have no need or desire for CB or even Amateur Radio. Add in the insane cost of Auteur gear and the all the bigots, arrogant social elite and hate monger's in that group is it any wonder the youth do not want to join their ranks. I have not gotten licensed since my Novice in Boy Scouts becasue I could not stand their condescending attitude and I refused to learn code on principal alone even though I already knew it from both Boy Scouts and Aviation before GPS code at least a working knowledge of code was needed for navigation station identification! In my mind the condescending arrogance of most hams is just as bad as the ignorance of the bottom feeder's on CB! They are probably worse in fact becasue they are not ignorant and education or access to learning and refinement and they know better but chose to behave in a hateful, mean spirited selfish way. They make the conscious choice to be part of the "Us vs. Them" mentality! When a fool behaves foolishly you just look around shake your head and laugh becasue they do not know any better but when an educated man act's like a fool well that is another thing all together!
The lose of good old family values, decency, integrity, morals and character is what is killing HF in general. Both Amateurs and CB are failing to attract the youth. On top of that anal retentive control freaks and a lack of any real progress in what is offered in both legitimate Amateur and CB is also stifling growth! The stifling small minded control freaks within the Amateur community the culture itself is what is killing them not the FCC or limitations placed on them by the FCC. They do not get this though! Archaic data systems and lack of voice on many segments band and mode limited restricted video by class and band are not so hot either. The cost of the gear is really insane when you stop and think about it. Who would want to play in that playground it is like playing in playground designed by the same guy that designed the DMZ between North and South Korea not real inviting! LOL
I don't know where you lived in '91, but not everyone had cell phones, yet. At around that time, the only cellphone I saw was used by the rich kid on "Saved By The Bell". It wasn't until '95, or so, that I saw one in person. I knew 2 people with cells, and they were both wealthy. It wasn't until early 2000's, that I started seeing cells everywhere.
In regard to language and courtesy, well I hear ya on that. When I start hearing things that I don't like, I turn down the radio or change the channel. But, I'm pretty thick skinned; it takes more than a couple of idiots talking trash to ruffle my feathers. "Hate speech", being some non-existent phenomenon made up by masochistic people who thrive on victimhood, doesn't bother me.
In regard to physically large transceivers, I happen to like them, and I am delighted that they are still in production. I understand that some folks prefer smaller radios, and I understand why. Fortunately, some manufacturers of CB's have the same understanding, and have produced these smaller radio's. You know, they now make CB's that you can mount in hidden locations, and all the controls are in the hand mic. Spiffy, yeah? Not my cup of meat, but it does appeal to my best friend. So, I can have my oversized, chromed out, multi-colored, tacky-azzed, CB radio, and he can have his discreetly hidden CB radio. Get whatever suits you, Hoss. Let me have what suits me. Frankly, my radio choice is none of your concern. If you don't like it, don't look in my truck. Simple as that.
Lasty, I agree that there are some condescending radio operators, out there, on both the HAM and chicken bands. You are coming off as one of them.
What do you have against rednecks, anyhow? Did some guy in a camo hat and a jacked up 4WD pickemup steal your girlfriend?
Lighten up, amigo. Life is way too short to take all this stuff so seriously. You're going to end up with ulcers, if you continue with this curmudgeonly crabbiness.
(Yet if you need assistance, he'll help you in a heartbeat. Pretty nice guy actually, but I digress....) Any local traffic in the Erie area will most likely be on ch.10. Just FWIW.......... 
...runna pile-up on 6m SSB