The Labrador hasn't changed, what's rewarded in the show ring has, you can find examples of all shapes and sizes if you look, but the show ring has focussed on some descriptive parts of the BS, which is why you get so many dogs looking like little clones in the ring. If you go out on a shoot you'll see dogs of all shapes and sizes that would fit many of the profiles over the years, and there are a few famous ones I recognise in there.
i like from the 1950s lab upwards. i like the stockier look of them, hate it when you see really skinny, really long legged labs with long noses.. just my opinion of course.
Funnily enough, I don't need to go on a shoot to see the variation in labs, the couple I own are quite different from eachother, they're different from the others past and present in the family too, all from working lines, as are most round here, after byb of course. I like a more middle of the road lab, not the light racy ones you sometimes see from working stock, but not the IMO overly heavily built examples you can seem to get with show lines either.
You're not the only one, and the middle of the road Labrador is alive and kicking, and not going anywhere, it just doesn't win in the show ring, and the profile thing doesn't reflect that. I prefer middle of the road Labradors, that reflect the BS and do what they are bred to do, and don't appreciate exaggerations either way, but you will get folk who are staunch in their belief that one way is the best way, and it either has to be able to win at field trials or in the show ring, neither of which proves it's a good example necessarily, a whole new discussion, but it isn't always the best dog that wins on a given day ;-)
