Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Do we have data on that? My understanding is that AD&D varied wildly between tables, and my own experience with 2E was as described - never get into a fair fight, avoid taking damage whenever possible, and natural healing was sufficient for when you failed at that.
Oh, that happened with me, too, until the cleric got a hold of a few wands of cure X and the heal spell. It's hard to argue that the availability of these items in 2e and especially 3e where somehow ignored by the mass of players when the game incentivized their use strongly. That's not to say that a group couldn't take actions to reduce or eliminate such, but then your argument is that there was a silent majority that rejected core assumptions about 3e (and to a more limited degree 2e) on availability of healing and played in a more gritty manner. Occam's razor says that's not the right assumption to bank on.
But hard data? Maybe from the organized play folks. I have tons of anecdotal data from many games across many groups, but that's not systemic data. It does confirm my assumption that the majority of play was using the default game assumptions of magic for sale (3e) and cheap healing magic (both 2e and 3e, Wands of CLW weren't uncommon on the 2e magic charts and were much more effective given the generally lower hp totals in 2e).
EDIT: It just occurred to me that the default assumptions you make about play -- that characters understand and know the physics imposed by the game rules -- would lead to those characters NOT using CLW wands in 3e as a primary way to maintain hitpoints between fights. Especially given the 3e rocket tag incentives.