I'm with Charlie, I probably wouldn't miss them for the most part if they went away. OTOH, they're here, and I am not going to try to lose them all!
I have the Lionel 6-18006 Reading T1 that I upgraded to TMCC, fan driven smoke, etc. It actually does pretty well without traction tires, and on the long club grades, I do get some pretty realistic wheel slip if I don't handle it carefully, kinda' cool.