I believe you may have a misconception of the chokes in older guns. While some barrels may have some taper from breach to muzzle, the choke in all the barrels I've seen was still in the last few inches.

I shoot plastic wads in old guns. A modern plastic wad with a shotcup will provide a tighter pattern in general. A modern plastic wad without a shotcup will have a pattern not much different than a felt wad.

"Better" is just a question of tighter versus looser, IMO.