Pace I personally feel not much difference. Sure these days we get more things done in a shorter time, but this is largely due to technological innovations rather than because last time people were more relax and now people work harder. I was clocking super long hours in my early years just like any new grad is now.

Some older workers at my age feel now working too stress, but I think it has more to do with their inability to change their working style to leverage on technology rather than the work per se is getting much stresser.

As for rapid career progression now, at the end of the day to me is just a facade, nothing much has changed. The fact remains that no matter what company in what age, there can only be so many directors : managers : executives : labourer ratio.

The ratio hasn't really changed much, but what has changed is that HR nowadays are taking what used to be "executives" and splitting it into 4 or 5 different titles to try and create the illusion that their employees are being recognised for promotion every 2/3 years. Ask yourself in this age, has the job really changed much when you move from Exec to Snr Exec to AM to Manager? Most of the time the changes are very slight and are more of recognition of your "experience" rather than because you are doing something very different.