I often hear coments about element age as related to poor performance.
This confuses me because older elements actually run hooter than new
ones. This is because their electical resistance decreases over use.

Davis, here is some technical stuff for you. The resistance of elements
INCREASES with age - this is the explanation.

Kanthal element wire is an alloy of several materials, including aluminium.
The aluminium forms an oxide on the outside of the wire which protects the
wire from further oxidation under extreme operating temperatures. However,
it is not perfect, and oxidation continues slowly over the life of the
element - this is why old elements have a very crusty coating. The removal
of the metal from the wire reduces the effective thickness of the wire,
which increases its resistance (thinner wire = higher resistance). The
higher resistance reduces the current (current is inversely proportional to
resistance at the same voltage) and since power is proportional to the
square of the current, power developed by the elements drops by a lot more.
Also, the resistance of an element at maximum temperature increases by up to
4% over the cold resistance. When I was working on kilns I would replace the
element if it showed 10% or more over the design resistance when cold.

I hope this helps.

Regards, Dave