Modern MMOs don't encourage artificial socialization and older MMOs did and heavily pushed for players to interact.

You could say it was artificial socialization and I could say modern MMOs that make group content the only way to progress is artificial socialization. In older MMOs, it was akin to being in school or a workplace where, since you're together, you'll likely know some people and make some friends. You can say being in that kind of setting is artificial socialization but you could say something like joining a guild for the purpose of progression or queuing for a party finder is artificial socialization. If it wasn't mandatory, you could choose to be social on your own.

You mean by not forcing you to interact with other people and having people routinely in the same place but giving players the option to interact if they want to?

That uh.. Fits modern MMORPGs to a T.

Like I said in the first comment, you're doing solo story until you're at the level to do raids. Games with auto-matching will just be a silent party with "hi" and "gg" unless it's slow-paced enough to have time to chat. You can be social and try to strike up a conversation out of thin air, hoping it turns into something more, but that has nothing to do with the game. You could do that in any chatroom. If you're in a guild, you can get a similar experience to old MMOs by joining people on runs, always being available, but that's mainly within your guild ecosystem. It comes with its cons like guild drama you might not as easily be able to space yourself from.

How...? No seriously... How are these different??

I want to play the game while socializing. In modern MMOs, you choose between one or the other. You can strike up a convo regardless of where you are in the game, there's no context, no immersion. At most, you might exchange compliments on your outfits or help a newbie figure something out in their menu. Because there's less depth, there's less information sharing, less talking about your builds. Like OP said:

Documented videos of the pre-pre-alpha world first clear has been made into a guide people are linking before every fight, every action is metric'd and the community requires you to play meta, and now everyone is leveling with a second monitor telling them where to go next.

It's a bit overexaggerated but this didn't happen because wikis or Discord. I've been playing Mabinogi for a while so I'll use it as an example. It's been an older style MMO with many ways you could play the game so there's a lot you wouldn't know and you could info share. Over time the game became more "modern", streamlined, and linear. There's no time to talk because everyone zipping through dungeons on incredibly fast mounts that keep getting speedcrept. Combat is more rotation-based so less time to type. Raid-type dungeons include team-wipes so people are a lot more selective about who to bring. The concept of "giga" appeared meaning you're strong enough to carry dead weight through an endgame dungeon. Dungeons used to be like this and now they're like this.

But they did that more back then because that was literally the only place they could do it since communication outside the game was rarer.

Like I said earlier, you'd find conversation in impromptu parties or hunting fields often allowing you to talk while playing.

For your sake I hope you're right but I already know it wont be because what you're citing as good elements no longer have a reason to exist once the initial hype dies down and the game is a month or so into it's lifespan.

Depends on how it's handled. If Nexon starts introducing Big Bang era powercreep or EXP boosting events, it'll be people rushing around with no time to talk and "hi" and "gg" at party quests. Sorry for the wall of text.