Calling the 80s and 90s "the olden days" is a bit odd. That decade, and those before, were no doubt the halcyon era of film and also an era where industry was juggling with the emerging technology of digital (even in 1986). Many observers would say 'very little has changed', but in fact a lot has changed: the photographers are not there; the film has gone too!
The outdoor magazines I wrote for in the late 1980s and early 1990s specified that [we welcome] high quality descriptive photographs accompanying submissions. Whether these photographs were negatives or transparencies, medium format or 35mm didn't matter to the editorial team they had the technology then to make the best use of whatever was submitted (but not scans: submitted pics were scanned in-house), but quality of the photography was the deal-breaker: a weak photograph would torpedo the entire submission. Dupes were encouraged to be sent in rather than originals, as this lessened the possibility of something becoming lost or misplaced (common in busy production environments). Then, as now, the emphasis was on quality photography, not what camera was used. Not what film was used. Or bokeh or bunkum. Just quality, descriptive, exciting photography. One of Australia's most prolific rock climbers and mountaineers, Glenn Tempest, took with him on his worldly travels a Nikon F90X and just two lenses. His favoured film then for the myriad submissions to WILD magazine was Velvia (Ektachrome before that). He ditched film a long time ago and now works in MF digital as a key component of his publishing business.
Not actually a pro in those days (until 1991), nevertheless my income from writing and photography was around $2,300 over a spring-summer publication releases. I submitted Kodachrome 200 transparencies (I had yet to migrate to Velvia and/or Provia which came around early-1990s I think) and images were reproduced very, very well (a little dark, which was common for the print technology at the time). The magazine today is now fully digital and integrated and insofar as submissions are concerned, it very strongly favours digital, but "will consider" the use of film (and a few landscape practitioners do submit MF or LF, but they are not very common).