Peer review really was different in the past. Hell, Nature even used to occasionally accept papers without any review at all until the mid-1970s, if the editor

Peer review really was different in the past. Hell, Nature even used to occasionally accept papers without any review at all until the mid-1970s, if the editor thought they would provoke good discussions. Watson and Crick's famous 1953 paper where they presented the double helix of DNA is one such example.