Agreed. Though I only discovered them last year (I happened to be in a record shop when Where'd You Learn To Kiss That Way was playing (Quicksilver and Star Of David were on, I believe), asked what it was and bought it; since then I hunted down various rarities on MP3 file-sharing services.)
There's something about the Field Mice; their earnestness and sincerity, which still carries strongly across the years. Even though the original feelings have long since passed in someone else's youth, their echoes resonate with our lives, our yearnings and innermost feelings. Or so it feels to me.
Plus, they're not just twee pop; they could do everything from New Orderesque synthpop to country to very classy, tight jangle-pop to shoegazer. Which is something special.
That's a great way to discover a band. By chance when they play it in a record shop. I remember discovering Mary Margaret O'Hara this way. What you wrote about the lost feelings which still echo in us is probably the criterion for classic music. The universality of the classics. Though the people Shakespeare wrote about are long dead his plays and sonnets still hold and didn't age at all.
So you like The Field Mice too. The most underrated band of the late eighties. Indie pop heaven if there is one. Only The Smiths and House of Love can give me the same kind of nostalgic feelings. And they gave me those feelings already when they were still around.