Very interesting. Do you think it was all the sativa's around back then? Have you tried going back old man and growing a sativa? I think @SubGirl recently ran something sativaI had a friend who bought lbs of Mexican brick, he would go through the lbs because at times, something would stand out against the rest. Also use to find oddities, like bottle caps or other such things.
I have been using cannabis for around 55 years, I find the average strain these days while good, they lack the diverse nature of the older strains. Like quality Mexican, SE Asia and Columbian for example, todays strains get you high but they lack the character of what we referred to as exotic weed.