Doing it with models would have been real bad I guess. Before Lucalsfilm, models were quite looking like models.

Just go look at a 1980's science fiction movie and you'll see lots of really bad model shoots, dynamics all wrong and so on (even the big ticket ones like James Bond movies got it wrong routinely). But the audience wasn't as spoiled and likely never noticed, I only realized how cringy they were on re-watching with my spoiled 2021 eyes and mindset.

I've really come around to appreciate the cringe. When you see obvious models or extremely bad painted backdrops edited in it makes me appreciate the attempt. Maybe I'll feel that way about bad CGI one of these days, but practical effects just hit different.

I think what also doesn't help is that resolution is just much higher today. A lot of model clips would have been smoothed over by the low resolution but these days we all watch the 1080p or 4k remasters.

Some stuff that stands out to me was star trek tng where you can see the wood grain in things like doorways even though they're painted. No way that would have been visible on TV.

Other stunts in the movie were done with models, and you can see how bad they are.

Even today, I doubt that buzzing sequence could be done as convincingly as the real thing. I've seen some aviation war movies done with CGI, and it just isn't quite right.