Diff. btw new and old rubber

I have seen that the grippiest rubber are tacky and the non grippiest are anti.  As I buy a normal inverted rubber, it has some amount of grip on it.  But as it gets old it looses that grip.  I was wondering if that is the only diff. btw new and old rubber.  For instance, what happens to the hardness of the sponge and the topsheet?

I got a year old hammond and sriver EL I am playing with.  No matter what kinda ball my opponent gives, I just drive it back and end up killing him.  His most furious loops are blocked by me with ease.  He is 1950 and says that It is not your talent but it is b/c your rubber is dead and my spins have no effect you.  But when I do my loops, he ends up missing them(not all of them ofcourse).  So I am capable of producing spin too.  What do you think?

yea...it quite possibly could be that your rubbers are dead(sponge) ....if they feel hard...they its definitely dead.  i played with a dead F1 and it was pretty crap...couldn't loop underspin at all because the ball wouldn't sink into sponge because it was all hardened...

But since dead rubber means hard sponge, why do people say it is easier to block loops with softer rubber?  I mean according to him, his loops were easy to me b/c I have a hard sponge, isn't it suppose to be the other way around?
As it occurs to me, the only way I see old rubber helping a guy block better(scientifically, it reduces the control) is by its slowness.  So If I buy a new slow rubber, my block would infact improve wouldn't it?  Thus I beat him by my talent, my rubber just stops me from getting good grip and spin on the ball which actually works against me if anything.

Maybe that old rubber crap is just a myth.

-sK

Well, if I keep cleaning the surface, which I do, the surface can never dry up.  Wait a min., does that mean a hard sponge anti last as long as the rubber itself beomes fragile and breaks apart?  lol, if that is true then it proves my point again.  Older rubber just becomes harder to play with, thus when I beat him, I am playing against odds!

yea...if it claims that ur sponge is dead(it may well be)..then he should beat u with other tactics....and not rely so much on spin...you always have to adapt to different tactics(true for all sports).