Elastomers went out in the late 90's replaced by springs and then air. At the time when thats all we had we pretty much developed a range of concepts to make them softer, which included hitting them with hammers and also drilling holes in them, but the basic problem was still there in that its more than just the spring action of pogoing up and down that gives a fork a wider range of use. Damping became the goal.
Damping is beyond tightening down a spring to make it firmer, or loosening it to make it softer, there are tiny differences that make al the difference.
Take small bumps for example, or ripples. if a fork goes over these the fork compresses but then rebounds are at the same rate, so you need to be able to adjust both aspects.
Throw into the mix that some hits the fork takes are at very low speed, and some are- depending on what you are riding are at high speed, so in effect you are placing far greater compression because of speed involved.
So you need to be able to damp not only low speed compression, and therefore rebound, but also high speed for both aspects.
A simple air spring and basic damping arent going to give you this range. So what you have in the basic of basics, low end suntour or zoom - and lets be clear that zoom have always been a low end fork that was designed to be seen on bikes out of the likes of argos, where the entire bike costs £99.99.
In fact calling it a suspension fork is perhaps giving it airs and graces it is undeserving of.
Over the past 30 years fork development has been through a host of changes and serious money has been thrown at that development, with designers coming from the likes of F1 car and bike racing.
No way can you compare a suntour or zoom low end fork to anything resembling a proper, up for the job modern fork.
In fact in the late 80's and early 90's most forks used in the new sport of MTBing could mot be compared to the current crop of zoom or suntour(Suntour incidentally is a make that made similar parts to shimano. They died a death in the 80's because they couldnt compete with shimano, and of fork manufacture they have no historical experience)
On my bike i run a Fox36 and have a RS Lyrik ultimate in reserve. I know both of these forks are up for anything i care to throw at them either deliberately or accidental