There is definitely something new to all this wussification.
If I recall correctly,
Charlatan, you live where I grew up. I remember when the
kindergarden apparatus of
Withrow public school was first erected, back in the very early eighties. It was a two story structure with nothing but wood banasters to prevent kids from falling off. "The pit" (as it was called because, when I was a child, it was an enormous pit of sand walled by wood logs) was home to a slide the length of an entire hill, a one story bridge, and a two story fire pole.
I used to play excellent games of sand tag (tag where you weren't allowed to touch the sand. Quite a challenge in a sand pit) in the kindergarden apparatus (off school hours, of course) and the more daring kids were able to jump off the three story tower without injury.
Now, the pit is nothing more than a mildy sloping grassy hill and the kindergarden playground is just a giant sand box. The latter was a structure that was erected while I was in school, only to be taken down later by some movement that I can only assume is new...