no, not old tech and not obsolete.
you can get faster read/write performance now, but not i/o or random access.
You would be surprised how much of your day-to-day hard drive usage falls into the random access category.
same with i/o performance. lots of small files scattered across a disc (such as tiny preference files, cached web images, etc) will get to the RAM and the processor faster from a raptor than from a 7200 rpm drive.
they are louder, yes. they are smaller, yes.
but a RAID 0 of Raptors is going to be faster than a RAID 0 of non-raptors.
They are also due for a refresh, so don't be surprised when they get bigger, quieter, and faster some time before mid-08.