Actually it did, because up until about the turn of the century (the rise of then RJs), you needed 1500-2500 hours to get an airline job anyway due to market forces.

But them the RJ's came and they started putting wet commercial noobs into regional jets, with CA's who were often on the very young side as well. The ATP rule was an adaption to the new paradigm.

Yes, there were a few points in time when the majors hired wet commercials in the very distant past, but they had flight engineers and airline safety was a quite different landscape 50-60 years ago. Not apples to oranges. Today we are in a hopefully sustainable era of exceptionally low fatal accident rates.

I wouldn't use a 1965 classic car as a daily driver with my kids either.