I was actually musing on this the other day - it’s interesting to see D&D turn into effectively it own somewhat self-referential genre. My fathers well loved copies of Tolkien, Howard, Leiber and Leguin were tent poles of my adolescence - when I was first handed the 1e DMG in middle school, my immediate reaction was, “…my God, I GET THIS.”
Understand that I in no way mean to yuck someone else’s yum! It’s just fascinating to see the game exist and be played with a totally different frame of reference than I have.