Interesting question. I don't feel like the popularity of manuals was affected much one way or the other by Yeah Right, but there were a ton in there, now that I think about it.
I feel like Jason Lee played a large role in popularizing manuals early on & they've always kinda been "in" ever since. Other people were better in a technical sense around that time than J Lee (daewon, brian lotti, etc.) but he made them look so good that everyone wanted to do them after that. Agree that Mike V was an important figure - especially his Rubbish Heap part, as was Natas, who really started the whole thing - for me & most of my crew, anyway - in Wheels of Fire.