This is seriously fascinating and I'm thrilled you've dredged it all up. I was a big lurker back then, far too intimidated to post and I ate this stuff up at the time. I really think the archives of HPfGU are probably the best source of canon/fandom history anywhere. You could even define certain eras, name them and use them as shorthand for the type of thinking dominating fandom at any given time. How the once mighty dinosaurs have fallen and become extinct as the mighty meteorites of canon have landed (God, what a stupid metaphor! LOL).

Great work!