Well, in fact I did initially forget about the Rathbone films, and I thought about rephrasing that earlier paragraph, but I figured it still works, because I didn't say "It never happened before," I just said "I'm surprised it took so long." If the Rathbone films were the last time Holmes has been portrayed as a modern-day character before Moffat did it, that's a gap of 63 years, just over half the lifespan of Holmes as a character. Which is a pretty long time to go by without anyone trying it.