It's classic, most people just didn't realize it. A few reasons why it wasn't obvious very quickly:
1.) With the available camera angles back then, people were naturally fighting at max melee range instead of pressing up close against a MOB
2.) Groups were regularly fighting yellow/red cons as their normal leveling routine; root becomes harder to consistently land/stick
3.) Spells inherently got resisted more or faded quicker back then, and Druid/Ranger root for awhile had a higher chance of breaking right away, because the damage component of the spell hit after the root portion (which is also part of the reason why
Wooly Spider Silk Net wasn't getting abused back then, in addition to people simply not knowing about item recharging...which was never a game function the devs wanted for these items)