I'm afraid you are suffering from a case of romantic amnesia. These motors were 35-40 years old when they were retired, well beyond the normal locomotive lifespan for a major carrier. Deferred maintenance was the railroad plague of the 1960's, and was practiced by the PRR and successor PC long before the formation of Amtrak in 1971. By the late 1970's, steam heat was being phased out in favor of HEP, and the GG1's were not practical to retrofit. Add to all of this that the GG1's had transformers that were full of PCB's, making them rolling EPA superfund sites, and it is very clear that their time was up.
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