I think abolishing replays is long overdue. I think a one-off tie actually enhances the prospect of an upset, which is in the best commercial interests of the competition. Midweek games in the early rounds I can live with. Replays were, after all, in practical terms always played midweek so Saturday 3pm kick-offs in the FA Cup are hardly a holy cow.
The FA Cup has tinkered with its format throughout its history. You used to get replays for the final and semi - and they were abolished late in the last century (iirc) and the earlier rounds used to have an infinite number of replays, which went in the ’80s (again iirc).
As a competition, it used to be as big as winning the league, but that changed from the ‘60s onwards, I guess, and that decline was (very) slightly enhanced by the introduction of the League Cup (once Hardaker’s folly stage was passed, by the ‘70s) and the growth of the prominence of European football dominated (later that decade and up to Heysel) progressed its relative decline further.
It’s still a hugely important competition, but not as important as it once was, but those bemoaning its decline sometimes ignore, or fail to appreciate that decline started over half a century ago, not in 1992.
