Obviously--since both Purdey and H&H use modern machinery--they'll tell you that the products turned out by those methods are better than what they used to produce. Can't think of many companies that would admit they're now making widgets that are inferior to the widgets they used to make. Not even Don Draper on "Mad Men" could make a good ad for a product based on that premise.
As for the trend in the direction of lighter guns after WWI . . . true, but not because they're "better". Think of all the sons of well-to-do families that engaged in driven shooting who ended up buried in Flanders. That put quite a few guns on the secondary market. Makers of new guns, like Mr. Churchill, had to come up with some sort of gimmick to separate what they were selling from what had been the standard prior to the Great War. Not that Mr. Churchill didn't believe in his XXV barrels, but more than anything else, it was an effective marketing ploy for him. The 2" 12's were another effort to offer something different. But whether lighter or shorter is better . . . I think 25" guns, especially 25" 12 bores, have a pretty limited following on this side of the Pond. Less interest than they generated maybe a couple decades ago. Probably because more sxs fanciers these days are using their guns for Sporting Clays, and the trend there has been in the opposite direction: longer barrels. There are some "rough shooting" upland hunters that like short barrels because of the weight reduction, but that's usually in 28's and 20's for pursuits like grouse and woodcock hunting, rather than stubby-nosed 12's. I think most sxs dealers would tell you that, assuming the same gun, they'd rather have a 12 with 30" barrels in their inventory than one with 25".
