BTW, why are you that surrprised about the 40ies wiring? There are many US houses with knob&tube still in place!
I spent the last few years tearing out 1910s wiring out of my walls here in Austria, but some of the wiring (mostly ceiling lights) is still in service and holds up quite well.
OT, but recently I found a live 230V wire buried in plaster, no tape or anything, just cut! (Originally there were 3 wires feeding the light fixture, 2 seperatley switched phases for a big chandelier). At some point somebody installed a new junction box and thought he'd only need 1 phase, so he just ben one of the wires upwards and plastered over it. When it came to hooking up the fixture he didn't remember which phase was the dead one, and instead of checking he just twisted both together and hooked them up to the fixture. Ugh!
