I'd been in Ben Serotta's shop in Saratoga Springs several times in 1974. At that time he'd built quite a few criterium frames that were pretty extreme. I remember seeing lots of vertical rear dropouts, steep angles, and high bottom brackets. The workmanship was beautiful, though.

Towards the end of the decade the preference for standard Italian style road bikes was making itself apparent and Serotta responded accordingly. Bottom brackets dropped, head and seat tube angles slackened, and, for a while, horizontal dropouts returned to fashion.