I agree with
@TheInsider here. My friend and his family most certainly had no clue they were on a VA 737M8 and I didn't exactly point it out to them in case they had fears from the news. I noticed only because I looked out the window and there was a huge engine in my face.
Clean fancy new (modern) and functioning interiors has a lot more effect on the perceptions than actual age of planes. Think about a house, if you fully renovated it, its much harder to tell how old the house is from the interior.