I've owned a wooden sailboat, and can tell you from experience the owners of this ship would have eventually gone broke operating it. It gets to the point where you've rebuilt so much, you may as well have started over with steel or glass or cement. There's also no question they become firetraps, and once they start, fire extinguishers won't cut it. I've not seen this ship, and it's sad to see these things pass into history, but there are reasons they don't fly Constellations anymore, and speed's not the only reason.
On another note, 20 years ago my brother took a cruise on the old SS France. Can't remember what it's new name was, but he told me to hurry up and take a cruise on it, and I didn't and regret it. He did say, however, that every bathroom on that ship stunk to high heaven, toilets clogged with every flush, the rooms were like closets and the AC never worked right. But it sure was pretty. Now, I think it's parts of Peugeots or something.
I'm not for over-regulation, but I'm darn sure glad I wasn't on that Greek cruise ship that not long ago sank like a stone with people still on it or that Latvian or Finnish (can't recall now) overnight Ferry that flipped over in the middle of the night with few survivors, hundreds lost. I have to state my bias here, I'm a survivor of a plane crash into a freezing Lake Erie in late November, and was rescued by the US Coast Guard. I guarantee you Congress was acting on information predominantly provided by the Coast Guard, and what they say is good enough for me. But that's just me...