I'd be interested to know what percentage of tables use feats in 2022. I suspect that it would no longer be a minority, but I would love to see data. Certainly every group that I know uses them, as does every actual play show that I've seen. Often extensively (Critical Role), and I imagine that would influence quite a few people.
I suspect the percentage of tables that
allow feats has always been a substantial majority.
What Crawford said back in the day was that the majority of players did not
use feats, which is quite different. In 5E, unless you're playing a variant human, feats are competing with maxing out your primary stat until at least 8th level (and 12th for most classes)... which is to say, if you want to max your primary stat, and your campaign ends at or before 12th level as most do, you will probably never take a feat, unless you a) roll stats or b) start with 17 in your primary stat and use a "half feat" that grants +1 to that stat.
Nowadays, that second option is quite appealing, as there are lots of amazing choices for "half feats." But at the time Crawford made that comment, the available "half feats" were mostly trash. If you were, say, a wizard looking to boost your Int, your options were... let's see... Keen Mind and Linguist. Whee. Moreover, you had to be playing a gnome or rolling stats to get that starting Int of 17 in the first place. The changes in Tasha's have made it possible for any class/race combo to start with a 17 in anything.
So, back in the day, I think it's not only possible but likely that most tables allowed feats and yet few players actually took any. You'll note that 1D&D is institutionalizing the "floating +2" from Tasha's, as well as making
all feats above 1st level into half feats, both of which reduce the competition between feats and maxing your primary stat.
