I'm skeptical anyone really grew up with OD&D, since OD&D lasted a grand total of 4 years before being replaced by AD&D, and even then it wasn't a national thing until '76 or so and before that was mostly restricted to college students in a handful of colleges.
I started playing in '78 (after the PHB but before the DMG came out, my DM was one of those college students, the older brother of a friend) and my first character was a Paladin. We actually did do 3d6, but not in order and I remember amazing the DM because I also had rolled an 18 in addition to the 17 I used for Charisma. (Alas, my paladin died failing an ability check (dexterity) trying to cross a crevasse by walking on a log spanning it in plate mail.)
Basic D&D I could understand, but that used a different ability bonus scale to compensate. But once the DMG came out in '79, 3d6 in order was never an option in AD&D, other than one method where you did that like 12 times and picked the best.
Anyway, as to point buy, some people like playing characters they want, not what they roll. And as those people tend to be the ones that whine and bitch a lot, point buy shuts them up. As someone who generally doesn't, I don't really care, and conversely, rolling actually gives you a chance at really high stats, while point buy generally doesn't. In either OD&D or AD&D, having a fighter with 18 strength really makes a tremendous difference. Or so does Con, for that matter. I remember once having a Ranger with 23 hp at 1st level, while one of the fighters had 6.
And as my ranger went on to have a fairly long career and the guy with the 6 hp fighter didn't, I can see how some might find the playing field to be more level
So what I generally do for games I run, is have players roll, but have minimums. If you don't have a certain minimum, you can use point buy to bring the ability scores up to a certain level of competence.