The poor video & audio quality is the result of the analog equipment that Media-Com has been holding onto for the last 35+ years. The only things they have upgraded/installed in the last several years were the transmitter, antenna, and essential digital equipment (encoder, PSIP generator, etc) in order to broadcast digitally. Everything before the transmitter is analog, including the STL, I which is believe is the result of the analog picture & sound. Hopefully all this will be a thing of the past once Weigel takes over and massively overhauls the station with updated equipment. I don't know if Weigel will simply run W27EA-D's operations from the transmitter site, or if they will lease out an office building and relay programming from there.
If Retro TV was seen in a proper digital presentation, I would assume that some of their programming would still look a bit iffy, especially if they are public domain prints. W27EA-D just makes them look even more retro by giving them a snowy feel. Also, I don't recall what the name was, but they did play a movie a year or two ago that was clearly from a VHS.