A Lesson in Linguistics

Hello, everyone! Just in case you can't already tell by the title of this entry, This is Liz. I was just thinking about some linguistic things and I thought I'd share a bit of my knowledge with all of you (I'm not trying to sound pretentious).
Many of you are familiar with the subjunctive mood through your studies of foreign languages like French and Spanish. But did you know that English retains the remnants of a subjunctive mood?
First, maybe I should briefly explain what the subjunctive mood is. The subjunctive is used to express many different aspects of an idea, action, or thing that could happen but has not. Its easiest description is that it expresses a dream or wish. Many idioms contain the subjunctive mood; "God save the queen," "Heaven help us," and "Be that as it may" all contain the subjunctive mood. "Save," "help," and "be" are in the subjunctive even though they look just like they do when used in the indicative mood (which is used most often--our main past, present, and future tenses are here). Because so many of our verbs are in the same form in both the indicative present and subjunctive present, it is difficult to spot the subjunctive when it is used. The interesting thing is that only the "be" verb retains the past tense in the subjunctive mood ("if I were to go..."), even though it has nothing really to do with the past. So, to continue with my discussion.
Many linguists have simply declared that English has no subjunctive, but there are these few idiomatic terms, along with the "be" verb, that have kept the subjunctive mood from completely dying out in English. It's amazing, once you know how to use the subjunctive properly, how many places it ought to be used in our language. The debate about this mood dying out centers around the fact that it is being used less and less. Here's an example of this decline:"If I were a rich man..." is an expression that shows that the speaker is not a rich man, but he is about to talk about how things would be if he were one. Interestingly enough, this song was recently redone by Gwen Stefani and the phrase was changed to "If I was a rich girl...." No one, however, mentioned the discrepancy because the indicative "was" is starting to be preferred to the subjunctive "were."
Perhaps another reason for this switch owes to the difficulty of deciding when to use the subjunctive versus the indicative. If something actually happened in the past, then the indicative is used, but if something could have occurred but didn't, or is not likely to occur in the future, then the subjunctive is used.
Confused yet?
What got me started on all of this was an example that I found that went against the changing of the times. I happen to have both the original and redone versions of a seventies song called "Tell Me Something Good," and I was listening to the older version and noticed that they said "I'll make you wish there was 48 hours to each day." I got curious, being who I am, and switched to the other version to see if it was the same (you catch that? I used the indicative there). I was surprised to find that, in the new version, they changed the indicative to the correct subjunctive by saying "there were 48 hours...." Interesting that the new version is actually using the correct form. But here's my question: were they trying to switch it to the subjunctive mood, or were they trying to make that verb agree with the plural "48 hours" following it? Stroke of luck? Maybe. I'd be happy if they were actually thinking about the subjunctive when they changed it though.
So, to those of you who are still reading this (congrats!) sorry to bore you! Maybe you have an opinion about it though. If you do then let me know. I love talking about the subjunctive mood, even though I confuse myself if I think too much about it.
Much love!
Liz