Dumbing down the Books

[Eurytus]

More importantly, what is the future of a language that insists on forgetting half of its vocabulary every five-hundred years?

Actually it is false to sugges that modern English is somehow less worthy than Old English as you seem to be suggesting above. Nor is it true to say that it somehow has 'fewer words' than the older English. In fact English is probably more diverse a language now than at any time in the past. The fact that many of today's youth choose to ignore much of it is somewhat their own personal choice.
But modern English is as rich (or richer) than that which went before and is fully capable of expressing everything and anything that the author so chooses.