I'm sure it was the latter, like you say. For one thing, the computer technology you used depended on your specialty, but there were also different "cultures" within each specialty regarding the thesis. The high-energy physics students had access to Unix workstations and used LaTeX.

Most of the other students had whatever old MS-DOS boxes they could afford, commercial quality typesetting was impossible, so nobody demanded it. My advisor didn't even send typeset copy to journals, because he figured they would just retype it anyway. Acceptance of manuscripts in computer readable format was just on the horizon.

There was a strong tendency to get emotionally attached to the physical document -- it was the pinnacle of your career after all -- and to get wrapped up in the aesthetics. I avoided that, partially because the clock was ticking. My boss had accepted a job at another university, and I had to clear out by a certain date. Nothing sharpens your mind like a semi truck coming to haul your experiment away.