Although the differences between hot-metal technology and photography seem clear to outsiders, the dominant manufacturers in hot-metal typesetting struggled for years to develop new photo typesetters.
As for the crudities of hot-metal typesetting and letter-press printing, all these have long been superseded by electronic setting (in which a 1970s managing director, Ian Trafford, was a pioneer, and made The Economist one too), and by the stunning quality of modern offset printing.