Oh Monty Haul, most of the early editions relied on magic items to increase a characters power and ability, since aside from a few items (ioun stones, manual of strength/fitness/whatever, wish) there was no way to permanently increase your stats. Whatever you started with was usually what you ended with. So between levels (more to hit), and magic items (ability to do more damage), magic items were part and parcel to the experience. Our characters (when we were much younger in 1e and 2e were dripping in magic items), but also had to deal with item/magic items saves when we failed saves versus damage spells, or falls, or criticals (roll a 1 to hit, roll save for your sword, on a 1 it breaks if its magical).
This was often offset by the NPCs, Monsters (intelligent ones at least), also using those items on us. Nothing worse than facing that monster or NPC wielding the Vorpal Sword that you so desperately wanted...
Magic items how have been "moved over" to PCs via class abilities, racial abilities, ASI's, and in some ways Feats. There is less of a "need" for magic items, aside from being able to affect creatures only affected by magic weapons. But likewise, every character now has the ability to cast some type of magic (or easy access to a damage cantrip via Feat), so even that isn't a major obstacle. To me, in 5th, Magic Items (permanent ones) would be rare, but powerful. What's the need for a wand of magic missiles when I can cast Firebolt or Eldritch Blast every 6 seconds all day long?) And because every character is just as capable as any other, you see less martials and rogues, and more parties made up of all or mostly casters or multiclassed casters, where in the older editions, the idea of a party of mages was a recipe for a short work day, and usually dead party after the first encounter or two. Magic items in 5e in adventures is part of that "legacy" of older editions, and players are always happy to get them and use them. Although in my last game (5e), one of my players continually griped about "lack of magic items", when his character had 3, and the party sheet had another 8 that no one took or cared to use. Their character sheet abilities were better in just about every instance).
On NPC's, I have pages and pages of pre-rolled NPC stats, using whatever method players used. If the players used 3d6 in order, so did I. 4d6 drop 1 six times, same for NPCs. That way I avoided situations where NPCs had better stats overall than the players because I was selecting them, and caused me to think about what that meant for the NPC in terms of his spells, abilities, and magic items. Now, of course, that was usually for NPCs who would be recurring, or were mentors, or the like. Not every Tom, Dick, and Mary villager had stats, though I could grab a row from my notebook if I needed to. And then once NPC generators became available, those would fill in for that quick NPC write-up.
