Generally speaking, yes.

Consider what the art of translation involves: a combination of at least 3 things:

1. A sound, detailed knowledge of the language of the source document. That knowledge should, preferably, be considerably vast, and include a range of registers, an ability to handle different genres, familiarity with culture and history.
2. A sound, detailed knowledge of the language of the target translation. In my view translations are generally stronger when done into a native tongue rather than an L2. Again, the translator should have a high degree of ability and a wide degree of familiarity with the language. Importantly, their knowledge should represent the contemporary form of the language.
3. A good, working knowledge of the difficult art of translation itself. People often think that translation is just knowing 2 languages, but actually it's a higher level skill that involves bring those 2 languages into conversation and correlation, considering what will be gained and what lost by certain translation decisions.

As for 1, in the case of some ancient languages, our knowledge is at this point only increasing. Perhaps at some past point, our predecessors had superior knowledge of the source languages, but we are definitely past that point for, say, Ancient Greek or Latin. The age of the computer coupled with corpus analysis and modern linguistics has allowed us a better understanding of those languages all round, and a scholar in such a field can increase their knowledge in element 1.

As for element 2, an older translation may be good, reliable, accurate, and suited for its time. But as, for example, English moves on, translations need to be made anew. While I can read and understand an 18th century translation, I don't normally and naturally communicate in 18th century English. I speak 21st century English. A translation that is more recent will attempt to do that.

As for the last point, I think this varies. Translation is as much skill and art as it ever were science, and despite the field of Translation Studies, I'm not sure translators as a group are becoming especially more skilled at translating. However, with points 1 and 2, you can see why in fields like Classics and similar historical fields, more recent translations are generally preferable and superior.