So all those DMs who bought the 1983 Red Box set flailed wildly, crashed, and never DMed again? How DID people ever play prior to 2008?
Given that D&D peaked in those years, and people fell away from the game in very large numbers, it might be a reasonable conjecture to suggest that, yes, a lot of groups eventually crashed and burned, in part because the DMs didn't know how to run a good game that everyone enjoyed. Perhaps if more people had understood how to keep things going, RPGs would be a bigger hobby today.
It's all conjecture, though, either way.
Speaking from personal experience, I can say that the main reason I am a good DM is that I was taught by a good DM (and a female DM, at that, in 1989), who impressed upon me something that the DM advice of the period generally didn't - that the DM wasn't god, and the goal was for
everyone to have fun. She also left me with an awesome hand-written adventure (that she never had time to finish running) that stood as a good template for adventures in general (a non-dungeon, to boot - I didn't run any conventional dungeon-type adventure for a year or so into my D&D career).
Later I read really good DM advice, but I also read a lot of really rotten stuff before that. Even Gary himself gave out absolutely appalling advice (and advice that contradicted how he ran his home campaign, eyewitnesses say!) in books like his Role-Playing Mastery book (what a horrible book - even at 14 I knew it was horrible).
[MENTION=55946]mach1.9pants[/MENTION] - Re: staring at the sheet - this was a problem even back in 2E, for some players who had a enough spells/magic items that they began to think the solution to any given problem was on the sheet. Strangely, it wasn't a problem for my 4E group at all, prior to Paragon tier - but at higher levels, when you get truly overwhelming amount of items and powers, it begins to become more of one.
Actually there was one player who always had the problem (not a regular, sadly), my brother - who in 2E and 3E always played Wizards (and thus always relied on "what's on my sheet, how can I use it?" to solve problems) - he had real difficulties engaging with 4E - everyone else, including IT people, lawyers, bankers, etc. was fine. I'm finding the solution post-Paragon is more exciting combat environments - gets them thinking outside the powers box very quickly.