It's easy to romanticize the old Ma Bell especially given the fantastic work done by Bell Labs.

I'd also remind you of the cost of a telephone system with monopoly status that didn't even let you install your own phones in the house for a long time. And which led too skits like Lily Tomlin's "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."

I can't romanticize about bell labs simply because the rest of the company had shady business practices? Huh?

Bell Labs was able to exist in large part because AT&T was a quasi-government regulated monopoly. You couldn't really have one without the other. (And I'm not sure I'd even say at&t had shady business practices. But they were a de facto monopoly.)

I think the point was to romanticize but temper it with balance.