Gold has more stability than the paper stuff, that's why it is preferred. These days with the increased demand for it, it is gaining value and not losing it. Right now a dollar today is worth 14 cents three decades ago or less. Gold doesn't have that problem and that's A VERY BIG PROBLEM. Anti inflation aspect is one thing I love about the gold standard. The real thing I love about the gold standard, and the very reason it was done away with, is that it limits government spending and taxation. They can't spend infinitely while on the gold standard because they can't make up money that doesn't exist--if it's not backed by metals, it doesn't exist. We need the gold standard for that reason alone. It effectively tells the government no, and we need more of that.
Back in the day when money actually was little pieces of gold or silver instead of paper and cupronickel, it was common for governments in need of more money to debase the currency. Hence Gresham's Law: Bad money drives out good.
Also, back when the US was on the gold standard a lot of foreign contries were starting to buy US dollars on the open market and redeem them for their face value in gold. This was a problem because the treasury had allowed the supply of dollars to exceed the supply of gold backing them; in short, the value of the gold backing the dollar was far in excess of the market value of said dollar. That's why Nixon (IIRC) took the US off the gold standard in the early '70s. At the rate things were going the US was going to have a gold-backed currency and no gold backing it, i.e., what we have now (except no gold in Ft Knox).