It would be weird to accept it if the basket didn’t change over time.

I don’t care what a farrier charges to reshoe a horse or what a block of icebox ice costs, but I might have only 100 years ago. Surely we’d need a way to include entertainment and lifestyle changes as they happen. 1973 CPI didn’t include any costs for personal computers, Internet service, mobile phones, etc.

A meter that would be of different length every time you would measure something would not be useful for measuring. I'm not sure that it would be made better by including your changing lifestyle and entertainment preferences as they happen.