>I would then telnet or ftp to these nameless hosts and see what host name the operating system login prompt gave me or what host name the ftp server announced in its greeting. I would then plug this information into my systems host table.

So, you removed what little security there was at the time to make sure that the machine pointed to by a host name actually had some connection to what the hostname implied. This is just one step below making the HOST.TXT file world editable. The NIC had a good reason for not adopting your method.