Got my "old" tech plus back in 1976, and did mostly 2m repeaters, off and on over the years. In 1999 the FCC changed the code speed test to 5WPM for General and Extra, so I went and took the extra writtens, got the CSCEs (Jan 2000) and with the old tech plus cashed them in for an "Extra Lite"
Been on mostly HF SSB and enjoying it much.
Soon the code test will be dropped. Then all you need pass are multiple choice writtens.
Ham radio callsigns make great unique usernames on forums and newsgroups.