So I am wondering why people now days just say things plainly. It's almost like we're talking without thinking?

I think people started really loosening up on their speech in the early 1900s during the rights movements and it just went downhill from there. I agree that there is so much beauty in the way people used to speak, and whenever I try to recapture that and people end up not liking it. I don't, however, think anyone was much smarter back then. Everyone used speech that appeared more elegant than ours and it was picked up easily by people the same way kids learn to talk to today. Also, not everyone spoke the way Shakespeare depicts them. Most people weren't even litterate.