I've got mostly original PW and have been lucky in that most of them still work well.
Yeah, the barrel loader, to name one, can be noisy but I spent a lot of time with mine fine tuning it and it works perfectly.
Glad the sawmill was mentioned. Mine functions OK but I think I'd like a remake with the mill sounds.
Btw, how about the 397 coal loader? Now there's a noise maker! The funny thing is I've read a couple of reviews of the remakes with can motor and they seem to have the usual problems.