I'm not arguing that you didn't think that, I'm arguing that your assertion that enchanters played differently in classic era than they do here looks wrong given the evidence of players discussions at the time.
You specifically said that you wouldn't find a lot of enchanters talking about doing it, or a forum of enchanters doing it, but there was a forum of enchanters talking about doing it and there were a lot of enchanters talking about doing it at the time.
There's no evidence that it was more risky back then, there's just people saying that it is risky. But there's also lots of posts of people doing actual research at the time and proving that it probably wasn't as risky as people claimed it to be. The consensus I read from this history is that: people thought it was risky because they were dumb and considering enchanters seemed to prioritize Int over Cha at the time and so it DID break more often for them because they didn't properly invest.
There's even a bunch of posts of people basically saying: "I initially went for int, and then I rerolled High Elf to go into Charisma, and the difference in charm duration is huge."
It's incredibly clear that by 2001, people were finally starting to understand charm and how powerful it was, how to build properly around doing it, and how to convince people it was safe to do. Like I said, stigma carries a lot of weight--if the general consensus at the time was that charm was dangerous, then it was dangerous regardless of whether it actually was. Maybe you were just one of those people that always heard it was dangerous and broke all the time and just followed suit while people were out there ballin with their charmed pets?
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If Enchanter solo charming (or even group charming) was such a common thing in '99-'01, there should be lots of people saying as much back then.
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To be clear--there are lots of people saying that at that time. Almost every single mention of Charm in what I've posted is people citing how strong it is as a solo option. I'm sorry but I don't trust the handful of people saying "charm broke all the time and is too dangerous to do" over the people who posted their Charisma breakpoints for charm durations and did actual testing on the subject demonstrating that it was definitely the way to do things.
I'd absolutely concede P99 might not have it _perfectly right_, but how could they? There were multiple posts of people talking about how their charmed pets would last several fights, or upwards of 5 minutes in length before breaking. The evidence doesn't align with, and I hope I'm not putting words in your mouth but I thought I saw you say this earlier--your assertion that charm broke in seconds and never actually lasted long enough to be safe and viable regularly. Given the fact there was a pretty steady discourse around whether Enchanters should stack Int or Cha, it means you had a large enough playerbase who didn't invest in Charisma, who would inevitably complain that Charm broke too often to be safe and reliable, compared to P99 where every enchanter is cranking the shit out of charisma and understands how it actually works.