I don't think that's the entire story. Those old Sedis chains were amazing. One could ride 25,000 miles on one without toasting the freewheel cogs. Most of us only changed chains when we didn't want to clean up the one that was on the bike but needed a clean chain for some reason. It was also a lot cheaper to replace a cog or two on a freewheel than it is to replace the entire cassette, which is what we usually have to do these days.

On the up-side, bearings are a lot less trouble on modern bikes than they were back in the day. It was annoying to have to repack the bottom bracket after every-other stormy ride.