You also have to understand one thing (source: me, a sw developer since late 80s in Europe) - there was no internet, and most of the people working in the field

You also have to understand one thing (source: me, a sw developer since late 80s in Europe) - there was no internet, and most of the people working in the field had no CS degree. This meant that neat new tricks (and stupid old mistakes) were done and (re)discovered all over the place, ALL THE TIME. You might have decided that data normalization was a good idea, or you might have maybe got the idea by one of your mentors... but you could not know that precisely the same thing was being done/taught on the other side of the street, or even 2 floors below your office.