You can't form a realistic view of the differences in appearances between the pre- and post- models by looking at today's M70. Today's are quite nice looking. The first year post-'64 was a really ugly rifle with the same name as (IMHO) the best looking production rifle ever.
There were several issues. There was the checkering issue mentioned above, but there was also the "free-floating" barrel. I read of folks getting small tree branches caught in this massive gap. I don't recall a "push feed" issue at the time; that's a really recent phenomena. There was (IIRC) a rejection of button-rifling, but later (early '70's?) folks seemed to settle down and realize it was probably a little more uniform across thousands of rifles. (I may have this confused with something else, however.)
In today's terminology, Winchester "cheapened the brand." They wanted to maintain the famous "Model 70," (and "Model 94," "Model 100," "Model 88," etc.) but they changed everything but the name, and for whatever reason, folks rejected it/them. The fact that folks were willing to pay more for a "pre-'64" seemed to imply that it was a better rifle, so folks stayed away from the new one in droves, and this (along with a similar rejection of the whole product line for roughly the same reasons) led to the current state of Not-A-Winchester USRAC.
I've always wondered what would have happened had Winchester in 1964 named the rifle something else. It might have stood on its own merits and we'd still have Winchester today. Speculation, though.
Jaywalker
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