What ever happened to the Gravy?

Dined out last night, in what would be called a first class restaurant. Not for the first time I commented on the quantity of sauce being served. The gravy itself was delectable but it had been applied to the meat dish with a fine paint brush; all very artistic but not what I would call nourishing.
It used to be that a main course dish comprised of plate, generously covered with meat or fish, potatos, rice or pasta, accompanied by a vegetable and complimented with a hefty helping of sauce. Nowadays, the plates have increased in size and shape and colour. I was recently served three small scallops on a gi-normous, black, triangular plate.
As the plates have grown in size, the food served on them has retreated to the middle of the dish and to spare the chef time, the meat, fish or whatever, is placed, pyramid fashion, on top of the potato, rice or pasta. This is then topped up with a minute portion of veg and perhaps a miniscule branch of deep fried parsley or aubergine for decoration. To cover the indecency of the half naked plate, the chef will then scribble a little sauce around the pyramid as if he is a Japanese line artist.
There used to be a piece of porcelain called a sauce boat but as gravy began to dry up like the water along the Nile valley, some gastronome invented the flat sauce spoon, which I suppose was to deter people from licking their plates, but even this wonderful innovation has now disappeared.
I am not complaining about quality because I’ll be the first to admit, that if you are willing to pay the price for it, restaurant food is getting better. But I do appeal to chefs in general to remember we are not all on a diet, and if you happen to be an ethnic English chef, please don’t forget the old staple, meat, potatos and gravy...lots of it.