I ... don't think this was the case. There are passages in the 1E books wherein Gygax makes it clear (well, clear by Gygaxian standards) that much of the point of AD&D was to codify things because there was too much difference between the tables--enough that it was at least sometimes as though different tables were playing different games. Given how people talk about how their tables played 1E, that was slow to change. I don't think that kind of "we play this game the way we want" attitude bespeaks the kind of passive base you seem to be talking about. There was always picking-and-choosing.
Well didn't he do that because...
..people were treating it as a hobby and players were letting DMs just do whatever with no pushback, questioning, and oversight?