Are old oils sitting on your shelf still good?

Blackstone labs did a series of test on old oil. They bought a bunch of stuff off ebay and tested it. Their conclusion was it was fine. It's interesting how little the additives have actually changed over the years. The thing I don't think you can tell from the tests are how well these old oils, the oil itself, not the additives, holds up during use. Do the long chain molecules break down any quicker then modern oils or what? Still, interesting to see that even the basic test info for a 40+ year old oil is not much different then the stuff you buy today and that sitting on the shelf doesn't seem to affect it.