My experience with both editions is the exact opposite of what you describe, in both cases.
In my years of playing AD&D 2e, I only knew of ONE group that even played it close to RAW. Every other group had to house-rule it extensively to make it even
vaguely playable. It had WAY too many arbitrary, silly, nonsensical restrictions (why can't elves be druids, why can there only be one 15th level druid in the world, why can't my thief learn to be a fighter, if my fighter starts the game illiterate why does he have to wait until 6th level to learn to read and write, why can't my dwarf become a Paladin, why do you roll percentage to climb a wall but a d20 to swim, why do priest spells go to 7th level but wizard spells go to 9th, etc)
. . .
I knew a lot of gamers that outright refused to play AD&D, finding it to be an antiquated, obsolete game (can't even call it a "rule system", it had no system). Mocking D&D as some antiquated relic, practically a museum piece of gaming, was popular among a lot of gamers in the late 1990's.
. . .but 3rd edition was something people could play RAW without a problem, aside from inserting some homebrew feats and classes, almost every group played it close to RAW. The gamers I knew who refused to play 2e would at least play 3e (even if it wasn't their favorite game). It was stable, balanced, and consistent in ways that 2e could only dream of.
So, my experience was the exact opposite of yours.