[Serious] Generally speaking, is philosophy a worthwhile subject of study?

[The Grand Nudger]

That's an interesting point I've never heard before. But again I'd say the same as above; it's not that I would wish the source material itself to change, just at most my own reading comprehension/parsing abilties. So I can fully accept that 'the medium [can be] the message' or that 'oversimplifying [can be] falsifying', whether that be the dialogues of Plato, or Shakespeare like GN mentioned earlier; something would basically get lost in the translation from original form to simplified/modern (or extracted) form, it would be like lossy compression in computing terms ;-)... or similar to poetry, where the words used are meant to evoke multiple meanings etc, and in their case, probably any change at all would destroy their original meaning.

Things get lost when the language no longer fits it's contemporary use, as well.  It doesn't even take that long.  The "non natural" part of non natural realism is a sticking point for alot of people, for example.  A dry reading, without a translator, gives you the opposite impression of what was intended.

Words change, meaning changes, use changes. Like any other message in a foreign language, reading The Original probably won't help all that much with comprehension. It's more for historic interest than accurate communication of a statement. Carthago delenda est means nothing if you don't speak the language. It's an empty phrase in literal translation. It's the distillation of a consequential political ideology - in plain talk.