One of my uncles owned a .220 Swift / Pre 64 Winchester Featherweight.

It was a nice gun, but there was not a lot of difference in appearance between a Model 700 Remington and the Model 70 Winchester back then.

As one gun writer said, and I will quote.

Unless you are being charged by a stampeeding rhino, there is no need for the controlled round feeding of the Model 70!

The Model 70 was very costly to manufacture, was very expensive to buy, was not a whole lot of them produced - in todays terms of manufacturing.

This is the only thing that makes them so valueable today.

The post 64 Model 70 Winchester was every bit as good a gun as the pre 64, but it got a bad rep because people did not like change.

Even the Edsel was a flop the first couple of years that it came out because it was a big car during a recession and it had quality and production issues.

Ford didn't go out of buisness, just because the Edsel was a flop. They came out with something else and people quickly forgot about the 58 and 59 Edsel.

Most young people have never seen a Edsel and most other people cannot even remember a Edsel. A friend of mine had two of them and had enough parts to make a third!
The motors were easy to work on and the bodys were solid as a rock. The transmission push button shifter in the steering colum was unique. He hauled them both for junk when he needed money.

There were probably 40 times more post 64 Winchesters made than pre 64 - due to the number of years that they made that model and due to the number of models sold at that time.

Yes Winchester lost some of their loyal following, but they gained millions of new customers in the process that never could have afforded a new Pre 64 Winchester type gun.