Yeah it always rang true to me as a company that did right by its employees, a mutual respectful relationship. Not to mention engineering was definitely seen as a priority. They even drew little doodles in the schematics.
But yes, an absolute gem and a nice little snapshot in time.
That's a shame about the lawsuits. I'm only bringing up (not blaming at all!) lawyers since it's the example you gave, but thinking about it, I think a sue-happy culture is just one of the symptoms or maybe foreshadowing our slow descent into not assuming good faith on the part of others or trying to lift everyone up rather than extract as much as you can from everyone else. It's as though we've moved from cooperation to being adversarial (in very general terms.)
I suppose that might be why that employee handbook attracts me so much--the contrast between their relationship with their employees is stark against what we seem to have today. Like before, it's a relationship of mutual benefit vs. the asymmetry between employers/employees we have now.
I'm awful with words and getting my ideas out, and I reiterate that I've nothing against law as a profession. It just serves as a nice exemplar.