Madison Square Garden: what's so special?

I recently had the chance to see a hockey game at Madison Square Garden (the home of the New York Rangers).  The Penguins were not involved in the game, so I could view the place fairly objectively.  As soon as you walk in, and until you walk out, they don't let you forget that it's the "most famous arena in the world".  My opinion:  Who cares?  Of course, history and old age make an arena special.  But it's not the only factor.

Take the Pittsburgh's (now demolished) Civic Arena.  The place was ancient, built in the late 1950's.  Up until its 2010 destruction, people loved the place.  But they didn't love it because of the history of the place.  The loved it because of its charm and familiarity.  The randomly colored orange seats.  The ancient scoreboard, complete with that little screen that could only show sliding block letters.  The way it wasn't symmetrical, like they built the place and then crammed in extra seats wherever they could (which, in fact, is exactly what happened).  The red siren lights and the flashing "YEAH" sign with the jumping penguin.  All of these things made Civic Arena a "home" for Penguins fans.

No such things are found at Madison Square Garden.  All you see is a bunch of hastily put-together videos of "Garden History" during intermissions.

Not to mention, the Civic Arena was miles louder than MSG.

MSG will always be famous because of all the stuff that has taken place there, which is totally legitimate, I have no problem with that.  But The Civic Arena was a better place to call home for a team in many ways.