History of ESD protection
I can only speak from my personal view...

In the 80's, there was a thorough awareness of the need for ESD protection and handling precautions. My then-employer modernised its factory in 1987, taking ESD precautions from only in the electronics assembly areas to every assembly area. The consensus was that we were very late in the day to do so. The understanding of ESD that I see is no more stringent or widespread than then.

What has changed considerably since then are the costs of electronic components and of PCB design, manufacture and assembly. I've seen these get dramatically cheaper.

So the costs of adding extra parts, such as transorbs, TVS or input filters are much cheaper. Back then, in the commercial industry I worked in, these protection parts would be an unacceptable increase in cost. It's not just the component cost, its the price of the inventory, assembly and testing that goes with having those parts there.