Actually, Pyramid and Pyle had some diamonds in the rough back in the day! Some of the Pyramid Gold amplifiers produced in the late 80s to early 90s were pretty good at making rated power and sounding good doing it. Pyle Pro subwoofers weren't bad either back in the late 80s to early 90s. As usual, one has to know what they are looking for.The key here is a "quality" amp produced these days. There is a LOT more junk produced today then back in the old school days. We just had to keep away from Pyramid, Pyle, Sparkomatic, Kraco, etc. back then. It is easier to list the quality providers today (short list) than the junk ones!! Or am I wrong?
But you are correct about the short list of decent amplifiers produced today. I like: Arc Audio, Brax, Clarion, JL Audio, JBL, Lunar, Phass, Rockford Fosgate, Zapco, Zuki, and a few others. Of course it is no secret that Lunar is my favorite because they meet my needs, aren't mass marketed, and are made here in Louisiana. It also helps that they make more than rated power and don't suffer from noise issues as some of the old school amplifiers that I tried to run did. They are also the coolest people I met in the car audio industry in quite some time.
When it comes to old school amplifiers, I like the Orion GX, SX, and HCCA line right up to the Digital Reference series.