My whole take on the "but these things have been occuring since time began" issue of earthquakes, wars, famines, etc is simply that this may be true, however because of the media coverage given, people in the USA can be aware of things occurring in Bangladesh or places many of us have never visited nor heard of and it's nearly instantaneous news. This wasn't the case in the ancient world, where people oftentimes had to wait many weeks or months for news to travel or updates of events they were aware of.
So it seems as if there are more occurences, when in fact they may be less. Jesus never said that they would increase, he simply said "you will hear of wars and reports of wars", etc. It's the WTS who says these things have increased in our modern day, when they may haven't at all.
Jesus did say there would be an increase in lawlessness, but that doesn't neccessarily mean wars. It could mean random street violence, sexual crimes, burglaries, robberies, terroism so many different things lawlessness can fall under. He then concluded by saying "the love of the greater number would cool off" showing that Love would decrease between people and they would care more about themselves than others. Things such as the WTS' dealings with it's members, banks defrauding their depositors, governmental officials killing their own people in genocides, the list goes on and on.
There have always been famines and disease. Many people thought the Bubonic Plague or Black Death was the harbinger of the Apocalypse when it happened, because it killed off 3/4 of Europe's population, which would be 3 out 4 people you know. Because of this one plague it has been estimated that our culture was set back 1,000 years.
But again because of instant communication technology via satellite, cell phones or what have you, it just seems as though there is more going on than in the ancient world.