Money has always been around, but even "corporate" was not nearly as stifling. 90s era Microsoft code is quite colorful - as I'm sure it would have been at most other companies of the era.
Shortly before I left someone on the coding standards committee espoused the idea that good code was code where you couldn't tell who wrote it. I feel as though the last vestiges of the BillG era died that day.
I've never liked style committees. I've never seen one do anything to actually improve code comprehension, but I've seen plenty of bullshit that kills velocity and sucks all the joy out of programming.
