I am old enough to remember that. I also remember the scores of gamers I’ve been associated with through the years working around that so that the PCs would actually be exceptional. I think the work-arounds and alternate rolling methods were being published in Dragon before the ink dried on the first printing of Dungeons & Dragons. 
It was a classic case of the designers not truly understanding the audience, even though they were part of the audience. It’s why, to this day, whenever I hear someone use the justification “but the designers intended” my reflex is to smack them in the head with a rolled up magazine, even if they do have a salient point.