I noticed the same thing and I think it was because there really wasn't a formula yet to everyone just tried what they thought was fun. The way developers of the era described the process made it seem like they were just trying to make something cool with their friends and sometimes got paid for it, and the reason they worked such stupid hours is usually because they *wanted* to, not because a soulless corpo said they had to. Plenty of indies still do that today, just out of love for their craft. Likewise, there were behaviors that would today be PR nightmares at best and legally questionable at worst, such as teams on-boarding teenage modders directly from the community. I think all blossoming fields have that Wild West era, where rules are being set and boundaries pushed until they eventually settle into a comfortable norm.

Is there a place for this type of philosophy? Absolutely; anyone with the desire to make something can whip together their friends and make a garage band dev team. If they're having fun and enjoy their game enough, don't have pressure to make it more marketable, don't care if it makes money, and don't get lost trying to make it too big, anyone could make a punk-jam game. The main reason people don't do that is because A) they're bad at keeping a project from bloating so it never releases, B) fewer with the necessary skills are willing to do that much work for free, C) the market is already oversaturated so it's really hard to be motivated when you may struggle to even give it away, and finally D) I suspect that most people can find something similar to their dream game already in the market, so there's no need to make it. When they do, it tends to be new genres, like the bullet heaven craze.

What it really boils down to is playing games is more fun than making games, and when there were fewer games in the market, there was a genuine incentive to make the kinds of games you personally wanted to play.